With such a perfect connection between wild gardening, flora and art, we were very excited to welcome Caroline as our guest for July’s Spotlight, aptly themed ‘Blooming Marvellous.’ This interview is expanded from the original version that was published in our monthly BuonFresco newsletter in July. To be the first to receive future interviews with brilliant creatives, curated favourites (exhibition, books, art, interiors etc.) and studio peeks, you can sign up to the newsletter here.

Caroline Kent is the former contemporary art curator, now talented illustrator and meadow-nurturer of Scribble & Daub. Dubbed a rebel-gardener in the New York Times, she tends to the orchid-filled meadow adjacent to her East Sussex cottage, whilst creating exquisite letterpressed and hand-painted stationery and prints, largely inspired by nature and the flowers around her. Her creations have a simple, colourful and stylish flourish that we love, and her cards are more a special part of gifts given than merely than just an introduction to them. We hope you enjoy reading her answers to our questions as much as we did.

Meadow Card from the You Are What You Give collection, Photo: Kim Lightbody

1. Top 3 gardens for joy, beauty or inspiration?

Aside from my own, without question my favourite garden of all is Great Dixter. Since discovering the place not long after moving to East Sussex a decade ago, it has woven its way into so many corners of my life; it has an elegant wildness I find irresistible, and changes so much through the seasons, that even if your visits are just a few weeks apart it can look completely different each time. We have a wildflower meadow behind the cottage studio created with cuttings from Dixter’s own, and my drawings of some of its floral inhabitants became the collection of cards, In The Meadow, that I produced in collaboration with Dixter and which raise funds for their work.

For wildness of quite a different kind, I also love the late Derek Jarman’s garden at Prospect Cottage; an island of determined cultivation and creativity in one of the bleakest and most inhospitable landscapes of salt and shingle, in the shadow of a power station at Dungeness. And much further afield is The Highline, one and a half miles of incredible planting by the legendary Piet Oudolf, breathing new life into a disused overhead railway line that cuts a swathe through downtown Manhattan; every time I set foot on it I get that New York feeling of excitement and powerful possibility.

Caroline in her meadow, Photo: David Winwood

2. What it means to you to be an artist and a ‘rebel gardener’?

My dreams come true!

3. Favourite season for nature’s palette?

As every new seasons rolls around, I will be heard declaring that this one is in fact my favourite - and in that moment it’s absolutely true - but honestly I just love them them all. If forced to choose, the vivid greens and confetti colours of early summer hedges and wildflowers are quite special.

Artichoke card from the Charleston collection, Photo: Kim Lightbody

4. Favourite garden-inspired artwork(s)?

The Garden Museum currently has a small but perfectly formed exhibition of botanical portraits by Kate Friend - she approached notable creatives and public figures she admired and asked them to pick a single plant or flower which she would then photograph on a visit to their home during lockdown. The resulting images are both exquisite still life studies and tangential portraits of the people who chose them - Margaret Howell’s Hydrangea, Cosey Fanni Tutti’s Euphorbia, Jeurgen Teller’s wild strawberry.

Yellow Aster card from the Charleston collection, Photo: Kim Lightbody

5. An admired gardener-artist or garden designer?

In a previous life, I worked at a contemporary art gallery in Edinburgh which represented the estate of renowned Scottish artist Ian Hamilton Finlay. I made frequent trips to his home at Little Sparta in the Pentland hills to collect prints from his archive and so often had the chance to explore the garden he and his wife created there across many year and seven acres of moorland. It is an incredible work of art created from words, plants and sculptural objects set within a wild and at times inhospitable environment.

Caroline’s meadow and cottage in East Sussex, Photo: David Winwood

6. The flowers from the meadow that you like to draw most?

The fact that the meadow residents are ever changing from spring to late summer is one of the things I like most about it and I don’t really play favourites, I’m just so happy to see each and every one of them. That said, there is something so miraculous about the hounds’ tooth pattern of a Snake's Head Fritillary, I feel compelled to draw them every year.

Hollyhock card from the Charleston collection, Photo: Kim Lightbody

7. Tame or wild? In gardening or art!

Wildness should be encouraged in both! Colour outside the lines, and let wildflowers grow where they will...

SEE MORE

Follow Caroline's Instagram for beautiful nature-inspired stationery and lots of meadow updates!

You can also view the full range of hand-painted cards, prints and original drawings in her online shop, and commission illustrations or bespoke stationery for events and special occasions.

Nasturtium card from the Charleston collection, Photo: Kim Lightbody

The Aster Muro Journal - Creative Inspiration and Updates

SPOTLIGHT / Caroline Kent, Scribble & Daub