A Passion for Plants and Creatures | Laurel Magazine

Written By: Zach Claxton – Highlands-Cashiers Art League | Issue: September 2024

Margie Bauer shares her lifetime of travel, study, and artistic inspiration with members of the Art League, September 30 at The Bascom.

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Margie Bauer, a botanical and scientific illustrator, “zendoodler,” fabric artist and a teacher in watercolor, pen, fabric art and mixed media, works out of her studios in Cashiers and Coral Gables, Florida.

The beauty, fragility and strength of nature is her inspiration. She often studies her subjects by growing native plants at home that attract native creatures. Volunteering at the Highlands Botanical Garden and on the Million Orchid Project at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden gives her even more in-depth knowledge of the wonders of our surroundings.

Ms. Bauer, an ALHC member, will be the guest speaker at the September 30 Art League meeting at The Bascom. Social time begins at 4:30 P.M., with the monthly meeting and presentation following at 5:00.

From working in her grandparent’s extensive gardens in Cincinnati, Ohio, to teaching chemistry in French and raising plants and animals as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Zaire to her 30-year international career as a diplomat reporting on and promoting agricultural products for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Ms. Bauer has immersed herself in nature. She served as the Agricultural Attaché at the U.S. Embassies in Indonesia, the Bahamas, Barbados, Bermuda, the Dominican Republic, Grenada, Haiti, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago.

She has taught art classes through Western Carolina University, University of Miami and many other venues, including the Cashiers Quilters, Half-Mile Farm, and Fusion Yoga & Wellness. Ms. Bauer also teaches the neighborhood children and their parents the life cycle of the Monarch butterfly, with the ever-present caterpillars and butterflies that emerge from chrysalises in her Coral Gables garden.

Ms. Bauer exhibits at the Art League of Highlands-Cashiers events and at the Bascom. With the Tropical Botanic Artists group in Miami, she exhibited at more than 50 venues in private galleries and national, state and local parks. Her artwork is available at many retail outlets in south Florida and the Smokey Mountains region.

We hope you will be able to attend this free presentation, which promises to be both entertaining and instructive. For more information about the Art League, artleaguehighlands-cashiers.com.