Dawes Mural

The Dawes Arboretum mural project, Newark, Ohio. Founding couple, Bertie Burr Dawes stand in the center of the composition with her “Brownie” camera, eagerly anticipating activities that fascinated her; birds, butterflies, and her gardens, while Beman Gates Dawes plants an oak and conceives of leaving a legacy of tree dedications by prominent Ohioans. Pathways lead our eye back to the Dawes House while some of Bertie’s gardeners stand or work among the flowers and farm animals. Swirls and circles suggest the Fibonacci sequence of numbers, and the Golden Ratio: numbers and nature. These shapes also contain the suggestion of different decades of Daweswood and its history. Within these areas are handwritten notes directly from Bertie’s journals from each era.