For the children it was an evening discovering whales, alligators, giraffe, and birds through artist and designer, Lu Flaherty.   Wildwood Designs myriad collection of nature artifacts was on display with her current art pieces during the exhibit held at the Education Play Station, a children’s learning center in Adairsville.  The event was attended by both adults and children who came to see the artists highly detailed art pieces created from recycled materials of woods, sculpted clay and numerous other raw materials such as paper skin from water birch , dried leaves from banana trees, and tangled tree roots.   Flaherty began her creative use of materials as a child growing up next to a farm in Illinois and would turn her newly discovered nature items into animal creations and then give them away; not knowing her talent of visualizing was something unusual at the time.   Currently more of her work can be seen at her portfolio website of www.wildwood-designs.net

Flaherty, who is also a Master Gardener through the County’s Extension Office, spoke to the children about perceiving nature in a different perspective.  She states having her training as a master gardener allows “One to see the horticulture world as a living entity with its’ own needs for development not much different from that of humans.  It needs the essentials of water, light, air and minerals to sustain itself, and under a nurturing environment it can endure.”