As early as 1995, Carol volunteered to plan and implement an ASBA exhibition at the Buffalo Museum of Science, not far from her home at that time. Following soon after were several other exhibitions for ASBA including those at Sonnenberg Botanical Gardens, Missouri Botanical Garden, and US Botanic Garden, all on a volunteer basis, for the benefit of ASBA members and to increase exposure for our artwork. As one can imagine, the time required to produce these exhibitions severely curtailed Carol’s time in the studio, and it was not feasible to maintain that schedule on a volunteer basis and keep a roof over her head. However, by then ASBA had seen the great benefit of exhibitions and wanted to continue producing them. Realizing that no one could do the job on a long-term volunteer basis, a part-time position was created and, in spring 2004, Carol was hired as ASBA’s staff exhibitions coordinator.
Since then, Carol has coordinated at least one, and often three, major international juried exhibitions each year. To further showcase members’ contemporary botanical art, the exhibitions began to travel, and Carol learned and developed new skills to deal with the logistics. To this day, Carol works with major institutions across the US and around the world, doing the work (usually singlehandedly) that those institutions employ full staffs to do. This includes developing concepts for exhibitions, producing the calls for entries, logging in entries, coordinating the jurying team and process, contacting artists with the happy news that they “got in” or otherwise, producing the catalogs, handling the artwork, writing labels and signage, unpacking, packing, shipping, and, in some cases, helping hang the show. She handles so many minute details, such as dealing with customs requirements in shipping artwork to other countries, reframing artwork that is submitted out of spec or slipping out of its mat, helping people submit scans, and innumerable other tasks. Carol is responsible for the success of these programs, but would be the first to thank the Exhibitions Committee and staff members who now help with some of these tasks, especially identifying venues, producing catalogs and artists’ interviews, and logging in entries and helping with condition reports.
One of Carol’s early successes in traveling exhibitions was Losing Paradise? This exhibition was presented at The New York Botanical Garden, the National Museum of Natural History (Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC), Chicago Botanic Garden, and Missouri Botanical Garden. It became part of a larger exhibition, Plants in Peril, at the Shirley Sherwood Gallery at the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew, UK. Her extensive research and writing to document endangered plants here and around the work was a tour-de-force. Recently, Carol was instrumental in working with botanical art organizations around the world to produce Botanical Art Worldwide, ASBA’s exhibition of America’s Flora and the coordination of events. This astounding event was the first of what it is hoped will be many more global collaborative projects.
The strength of Carol’s leadership is her professionalism and dedication to detail. At the 2010 annual meeting of the Board of Directors, her title was changed to Director of Exhibitions as a way to more fully recognize the quality and level of her work. But don’t be fooled into thinking that Carol’s success is due only to hard work, organization, and focus. Carol is friendly, good-natured, fun-loving, level-headed, calm under pressure, and a team player. All who work with her respect her and her ethics. She actively hikes and travels far and wide to view plants as they grow in nature; she works with botanists and plant growers, and so has a deep knowledge of the science of botanical art as well.
Carol has educated us through The Botanical Artist on topics such as how to frame our art and how to have a good digital scan made. She has written and presented PowerPoint programs for many of ASBA’s exhibitions, as well as one made for the general public called Today’s Botanical Artists and Plants at Risk, about botanical artists’ documentation of rare and endangered plants. Presented to naturalists’ and botanists’ groups, these illustrated lectures draw attention to the important role botanical artists play in enlightening the public about the environment and the plight of the world’s flora. Other talks have focused on Margaret Mee and Following in the Bartrams’ Footsteps.
Carol was the first American botanical artist to work on vellum and, since that time (the mid-1990s), she has educated hundreds of people in its particular techniques. For years Carol has taught juror training at ASBA conferences to demystify the process and allow people to experience firsthand the challenging procedure of selecting artwork to be included in exhibitions.
ASBA is not the only organization that has recognized, rewarded, and awarded Carol’s achievements. In 1995, Carol’s work was included in the 8th Hunt Institute International Exhibition in Pittsburgh. In that same year, she was awarded a Gold Medal from the Royal Horticultural Society for her watercolors of Paphiopedilum orchids. She later received ASBA’s Bouchier Award for Artistic Excellence.
The Lankester Botanical Garden in Costa Rica awarded Carol the Lankester Medal in 2013 for major contributions to orchid research with her accurate and exquisite paintings. This was the first time the award went to an artist, having been given to botanists and horticulturists in the past. Orchid Digest annually awards a Medal of Honor in recognition of meritorious service to the orchid world. In 2015, Carol was presented with this award, again the first artist to be so honored, and she presented the keynote speech on Orchid Digest’s Speakers’ Day. These groundbreaking awards, while of course honoring Carol and her artwork, indicate a now-elevated view of, and respect for, contemporary botanical artists.
Carol’s paintings have illustrated books such as The Genus Paphiopedilum, Second Edition, which included artwork by the late Pandora Sellars, and the monograph Slipper Orchids of the Tropical Americas, both authored by Phillip Cribb, PhD, of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and Christopher Purver of the Eric Young Orchid Foundation. Carol is currently co-editing with Robin Jess a book on botanical art techniques.
Carol Woodin has served ASBA in so many ways and we are so fortunate to have her. The James J. White Service Award is made for someone like her, who has always gone over and above what is required, who rarely says “no,” who unlike others who may let the ball drop, never lets her part fall. Congratulations to you, Carol, and thank you for being a shining example of a botanical artist and environmental defender, and an advocate of contemporary botanical art around the world.