Charlotte Jones ’79 Blome – Charlotte is an award winning designer who has been creating landscapes since 1991, after spending four years in Japan apprenticing to a master gardener and studying traditional gardens. She started designing gardens and managing their care while attending the School of The Art Institute of Chicago, where she earned a BA in painting and sculpture. She was also a top designer at Chicago’s well-known flower shop A New Leaf. She spent two years working for the Ruth Bancroft Garden in California as garden manager. For the past year, though, it has been on a consulting basis, as she moved back to Illinois. To see photos of Charlotte’s work go to her website www.charlotteblome.com.She writes: “It is an interesting challenge to manage a garden from 2000 miles away! I also do quite a bit of consulting work here too, but there is a lot of down time in the winter. So, I am starting an artisan chocolate (truffle) business to complement my seasonal garden consulting.Meantime, with our not-for-profit www.whenigrowupiwanttobe.org, we travelled to Haiti for three weeks in January to establish contacts with reforestation and well digging efforts. We have developed strong ties with the Chicago Haitian community, stemming from my husband’s (nationally known sculptor Erik Blome) portrait of Chicago’s French-Haitian founder Jean Baptistery Pointe Du Sable. Artists do tend to lead interesting lives, I guess!I have a lot of warm BCD memories. It was a wonderful little school then, as I am sure it is now and I feel lucky to have had the opportunity to go there if only for three years. If I lived in the area, I know where I would want to send my kids! I can tell you right now that the main thing I took away from BCD is an impression (a strong one) of what a good elementary school looks like. I have taken a lot of graduate level classes in education, and I often thought of BCD when we discussed great educators and educational philosophies. The kids who get to go to BCD are one fortunate bunch. That is for sure.”
Charlotte lives in Chicago with her husband and their two children.
