The Artist Talks to the trees

Catherine Delmas Lett

I TALK to the TREES The exchanges of an artist with nature

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The « Bucolic b o c a l » workshop is in the shade of an eden garden. We reveal to you the peaceful world of the painter-illustrator and poet Catherine Delmas Lett.

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Colors,

ornaments, stems, the whole panoply of plants filters the light, which bounces,

shines, clings to the slightest leaf, like water, seeping into the cracks.

The Singapore Botanic Gardens is a 163-year-old tropical garden located on the outskirts of Singapore’s Orchard Road shopping district.

It is one of three gardens, and the only tropical garden, to be honored as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The Botanical Gardens have been rated Asia’s Best Park Attraction since 2013, by TripAdvisor’s Travellers’ Choice Awards. I t was declared inaugural garden of the year, International Garden Tourism Awards in 2012, and received three Michelin stars in 2008.

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The National Orchid Garden in the main gardens is at the forefront of orchid studies and a pioneer in the cultivation of hybrids, complementing the country’s status as a major exporter of cut orchids. Helped by the equatorial climate, it houses the largest collection of orchids of 1,200 species and 2,000 hybrids.

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The Botanical Garden was founded on its current site in 1859 by the Agro-Horticultural Society. It played a central role in the booming rubber trade in the region in the early 20th century, when its first scientific director, Henry Nicholas Ridley, conducted research into the cultivation of the plant. By perfecting the technique of rubber extraction, still in use today, and promoting its economic value to planters in the region, rubber production expanded rapidly. At its height in the 1920s, the Malay Peninsula accounted for half of the world’s latex production.

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A rustle...

the wind... branches crack... music... the leaves come alive... the tops of the trees vibrate, it's the great living orchestra of nature, plant silence that comes in many ways.

At the start of the nation’s independence, the expertise of the Singapore Botanic Gardens helped transform the island into a tropical garden city, an image and nickname for which the nation is widely known.

In 1981, the hybrid climbing orchid, Vanda Miss Joaquim, was chosen as the country’s national flower. Singapore’s «orchid diplomacy» honors visiting heads of state, dignitaries and celebrities, naming its best hybrids after them; these are displayed in its popular orchid gardens.

Of the beauty of the world and of passing time,

silence of essential things

In 1981, the hybrid climbing orchid, Vanda Miss Joaquim, was chosen as the country’s national flower. Singapore’s «orchid diplomacy» honors visiting heads of state, dignitaries and celebrities, naming its best hybrids after them; these are displayed in its popular orchid gardens.

The eye reminds us of sunlight...

...in perpetual movement.

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leaves in the wind ... wind of freedom

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Laces of foliage, intertwined branches, natural screen

Botanic Garden

Hiking through forest, a picture post card landscape.

EDITED BY CATHERINE DELMAS LETT & LES ÉDITIONS PRODIGIEUSES Copyright © 2022 by Catherine Delmas Lett All right reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher.