Gardener and sustainable florist Susie Margolin will guide you in interpreting local art through sustainable floral design.  Susie  is a life-long gardener and creative entrepreneur who launched the sustainable floral design business Lotus & Lettuce to share her love of locally-grown flowers and vintage décor as an artistic response to climate change. Susie’s designs feature organic blooms that she grows from seed in her Auburndale gardens, arranged in vintage vessels for sustainable beauty. Her “floral sculptures” incorporate bold colors, unusual textures and shapes, as well as vegetables and foraged natural elements. Her goal as a designer and instructor is to promote creativity, sustainability, and community through “seed to vase” floral design.

Newton artist and architect Cynthia David Sachs will present at this year's workshop. 

Artist Statement:
My art is a wonderful complement to my architecture practice. The goal of an architectural drawing is to describe what is to be built as precisely as possible, with no ambiguity, and no room for interpretation. My goal with painting is quite the opposite. What I hope is that you, the observer, will resonate with some aspect of a painting and that the meaning of the painting will come into being through you.

I have always been drawn to the vibrant colors of the French impressionists and pointillists, juxtaposing contrasting colors to create a luminosity in painting. The color compositions are done both consciously and inspirationally within the paintings. The figure paintings are done from live models. Layering them as they travel through space. Many of the figures are tangled into abstract and innovative forms. If you study the paintings you may be able to see the original figures. Travel plays a critical element in the landscape art. The landscapes represent a love of coastlines, especially coastlines of Massachusetts , California and Normandy, France.