Cardamone’s extraordinary botanical illustrations are currently available until Dec. 31 at the Carol Schwartz Gallery popup sale at 1210 Bethlehem Pike in North Wales.[/caption]

by Len Lear

What Vincent Van Gogh did for sunflowers and Manet for water lillies and Renoir for beautiful women, Maryfran Cardamone has done for plants. The acclaimed Mt. Airy native spent lots of time in her formative years exploring the woods of the Wissahickon Valley and horseback riding. The love of nature led to her extraordinary botanical illustrations, which can be found in the book, “Botanical Visions: The Art of MF Cardamone.”

Some of those remarkable illustrations are now available until Dec. 31 at the Carol Schwartz Gallery popup sale at 1210 Bethlehem Pike in North Wales (at the AMC 309 Cinema Center, next door to Staples). It is part of a final liquidation of artworks by the Schwartz Gallery, which closed its shop at the end of 2017 after 27 years in Chestnut Hill.

Cardamone, 60, a graduate of Springfield Township High School, discovered her passion for plants when she restored a garden at her 77-year-old farmhouse in Penn Valley. For her artwork, she collects plant specimens. Adding her signature style of incorporating the historical, medicinal, cultural and spiritual life of the plant, she visits the intersection of art and science. Cardamone has partnered with conservation organizations to promote the preservation of plant life on several hemispheres, from the orchids of the Amazon to the forests near the Arctic Circle.

Cardamone, who is planning on taking a break from gallery exhibitions and focusing on commissioned works, was as a young woman torn between wanting to be a chef or an artist, so she worked in many kitchens including the Chestnut Hill Hotel when the late famed chef Tell Erhardt was in charge during the late 1970s and early '80s.

Cardamone’s extraordinary botanical illustrations are currently available until Dec. 31 at the Carol Schwartz Gallery popup sale at 1210 Bethlehem Pike in North Wales.[/caption]

She also attended Rosemont College for two years and started an apprenticeship with a former Philadelphia artist named Tom Palmore. “He was my mentor,” she said last week, “and I credit him with everything I know with regards to the artistic process. He was a tremendous positive influence in my life. Many years later I went back to school at the Barnes Foundation Arboretum School to pursue my love of gardening and ecology.”

A year-and-a-half after Maryfran met Palmore, they were dating. The couple moved to New Mexico, where she lived for seven years until the relationship ended, and Cardamone moved back to Philadelphia in 1984, although she and Tom remained friends.

Back in Philly, Maryfran founded Cardamone Designs, a successful limited editions clothing design company. She ran the company from 1984 to 1999, which became known for the revival of hippie patchwork designed items. In 1987 she married David Schlessinger.

Around 2000, the family, now with two children, bought an old farmhouse and garden in Penn Valley that needed restoring. Maryfran wanted to learn about the history of plants and specimen mounting since an exhibition of plants gathered during the Lewis and Clark expedition had previously delighted her. She enrolled in a three-year horticultural program at the Barnes Foundation, finished in 2005 and discovered how her artistic talents would be employed.

“My intention was to reinvent the genre of botanical illustration,” Cardamone said. She wonders if people have forgotten how essential plant life is to the earth's existence, and she is currently wrapping up a twoyear project documenting plants on her Yoga teacher’s ( he is a guru from India) farm outside of Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania.

“Presently, I have two teachers in my life,” she said. “My yoga teacher from India, who is a guru, and Faxiang Hou, a medical Qigong master from China. I feel fortunate to have met them. They have had a big impact on my life both physically and spiritually. If I could time-travel to the past, I would have loved to meet and spend time with a few Himalayan Yogic masters.”

When asked what was the hardest thing she has ever done, Maryfran replied, “I have climbed up a mountain to 16,000 feet in Peru. I have raised two kids. I also practice Yoga. So the hardest thing I have ever done and the hardest thing I continue to try to do is practice the first limb of the eight-limbed path of Yoga called Yamas. Ahimsa is the first one of the five characteristics of Yamas. We try to go through every single day doing no harm in thought, word and action.”

When asked what was the best advice she ever received, Maryfran said, “The more you practice, the better you get.”

Maryfran and David's two children are Jake, 28, and Louie, 23.

For more information, visit MFCardamone.com or email CarolSchwartzGallery@gmail.com. Len Lear can be reached at lenlear@chestnuthilllocal.com