Chalk Heart

Description

For many years, four heavy portfolios lay under Sarah Ibberson’s bed, filled with her late mother’s luminous botanical illustrations, testament to a lifelong love of native British flora. Kate Ibberson had been a very private and self-effacing woman, as unassuming as the wildflowers that she recorded with such vertiginous attention. Very few of her drawings had been seen by anyone outside a small circle of fellow illustrators. Her daughter knew they deserved a wider audience. But how? On the seventh anniversary of Kate’s death, Sarah began to post the drawings on social media, accompanied by botanical notes and her memories of the woman who had created them. What began as simple cataloguing grew into an exploration of grief, memory and reconciliation, a process encouraged by readers from around the world who responded to the beauty and honesty of the stories she shared. Chalk Heart presents this unique dialogue between mother and daughter exactly as it unfolded: one flower, one memory at a time.