The Sublime Studio: {Bee Sieburg}
I spent half a day hunting for Bee Sieburg’s studio in Asheville, North Carolina. Kev and I slip up into the mountains from time to time for weekend getaways, and I love to stroll studios in search of new artists. Near the entrance of The Biltmore Estate sits The Gardener’s Cottage, a quaint shop which seems to be pulled from the pages of a Fitzgerald novel. Bee Sieburg once owned and operated this hillside shop, but now it’s her artwork that hangs on the walls, as she spends her time painting in her art studio.
I fell in love with Bee’s work that afternoon in The Gardener’s Cottage. That evening we had dinner watching the sunset behind Asheville’s mountains…I die. And the next morning I headed straight to Bee’s art studio in hopes to meet her in person.
And I did. And that’s also how I met Molly Courcelle, my sweet friend and favorite artist. Bee Sieburg is Molly Courcelle’s mother. These two women are precious, and their work exists to bring much glory to God.
An excerpt from Bee’s artist bio:
When Bee moved to Asheville in 1997, Wildflowers, which she had run largely out of her basement, blossomed into a storefront and shop in Biltmore Village called The Gardener’s Cottage. The original Wildflowers pansy logo remains there to this day, although Bee sold the business in 2004.
The sheer exuberance of being a cancer survivor, diagnosed as stage three in 2003, lights up Bee’s vivid, light-hearted and reach-out-and-touch-the-moment oils. “That diagnosis helped me see clearly what I wanted to do with my time and energies,” she says. “I am absolutely loving life!”
After graduating from UNC-Chapel Hill with a BA in Arts Education in 1964, Bee taught art to elementary school children prior to being drawn into the floral arranging business by a catering friend. She raised two children along the way, one of whom, Molly, is now an artist in her own right and shares a studio in the River Arts District in Asheville, North Carolina.
Enjoy Bee’s work. She and her art are a gift to us.
