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Highlands Today

Recreating Nature's Beauty

Kathy Waters/Highlands Today

Mollie Doctrow is the curator of Museum of Florida Art and Culture, which is located at South Florida Community College in Avon Park.

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Sue Ann Carpenter

Published: February 4, 2008

AVON PARK –– Mollie Doctrow grew up as a city brat in California. Nature wasn't part of her family picture. They stayed in hotels and never camped out. But from her first outdoor experience with Girl Scouts at 16, she fell in love with nature and became the family oddball.

"Something connected and filled this spot inside me, and the more time spent in nature, the more connected I feel," Doctrow remembered.

She received her master's in fine arts from California State University in Northridge with a specialty in printmaking. While teaching at Brevard College, she visited a friend in the Sebring area.

Doctrow stayed, created artwork and fell in love with the environment. For the past three years she has been the curator at South Florida Community College's MOFAC (Museum of Florida Art and Culture) which is dedicated to the art and artists of Florida whose work interprets Florida history, heritage and the environment. Doctrow contacts artists and schedules shows and events to showcase their work. In addition, she also teaches computer graphics, drawing, printmaking and design at SFCC.

Doctrow has completed art residencies at Big Cypress, Everglades National Park and most recently at Archbold Biological Station, capturing the primeval solitude and beauty of these surroundings. Her Sheltie, Sunny, accompanies her, when possible, and is referred to as the "doggie in residence."

Whether paddling through mangroves and saw grass, or searching a scrub habitat, she finds different plants and flowers that are threatened or endangered. Her artwork conveys the peace and calmness of the locale, whether it's rosemary bald, live oaks or cypress. Native habitats are the subject of her art, whether old growth forests, swamps or prairies.

Doctrow first sketches on site, capturing the texture and rhythm of the place and its simple yet beautiful forms. Her resultant woodblock prints might capture the overall view of a bay head with palmettos, or a delicate close up of a butterfly orchid. She shares a momentary glimpse of the clamshell orchid and pine pink, lupine, paw paw and the rare dicerandera that only grows in Archbold Biological Station and Sebring.

Doctrow loves gardening and digging in the dirt, planting something and watching it grow. She enjoys hiking, biking, canoeing and kayaking and is always eager for an invitation to discover an unknown habitat.

Doctrow's environmental woodblock prints are shown at LK Artworks in downtown Sebring. She will be teaching an afternoon workshop at Bok Tower on bookmaking and nature prints on Feb. 16. On April 9 she will be giving a talk titled, "The Spirit of the Scrub" in building G101 at SFCC, Highlands campus, from 1-2 p.m. It is open to the public.

Doctrow is drawn to the exotic mystery of tropical plants and enjoys seeing them in different seasons. She's passionate about preservation and her art heightens awareness of the beauty in these places.

"People take for granted what's in their own back yard and only when they go on vacation do they come back with fresh eyes," she said. It's so easy to "not see" but that's how art can help, she added.

MOFAC is located adjacent to the SFCC main auditorium. It is free and open to the public from October through May on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday from 12:30-4:30 p.m. and by appointment for group tours. SFCC Artist and Matinee Series patrons may visit the museum one hour prior to every performance.

For more information on MOFAC, call her at 784-7240 or go to www.mofac.org. Visit www.doctrow.com for a sample of Mollie's artistic renderings of nature.

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