The Creators: A sense of place, Leslie Watkins at Dandelion Cottage

Norfolk artist Leslie Watkins in her garden at Dandelion Cottage
Jennifer Almquist
Norfolk artist Leslie Watkins in her garden at Dandelion Cottage
'We make the invisible, visible- my muse and teacher Frank Mason taught me that,” recalled Norfolk artist Leslie Watkins.
A pre-Raphaelite beauty herself, this master watercolorist, classically trained landscape painter, and Master Gardener sat in dappled sunlight on her deck, feeding walnuts from a jar to a friendly chipmunk, with her rooster Houdini crowing in the background. Her love of nature, painting the beauty that surrounds her, and creating landscapes en plein air (in the open air), inform the details of her life.
Years ago, Leslie purchased a small house in Norfolk with a lawn that slants directly down to a busy roadway. Now when approaching her magical one acre, one must search to find her house. Deep layers of trees, magnolias, apples, giant hydrangea blooms, and native species of flora and fauna create a labyrinthine series of pocket gardens, some dark with shade-loving plants and ferns. Leslie has become the landscape she paints.
She refers to herself as an “artistic descendant” of the Old Lyme Art Colony, which was the heart and soul of American Impressionist painting. The pantheon of Watkins’ artist influencers includes Childe Hassam, William Metcalf, and Frank Vincent Dumond. At the Art Students League in Manhattan, Dumond taught Georgia O’Keefe, John Marin, Norman Rockwell and Frank Mason. Watkins has exhibited her fine art paintings in the Columbus Museum, the Lyman Allyn Art Museum, the National Arts Club, the Salamagundi Club, the Union League Club, the Hudson Valley Art Association, Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, the Lyme Art Association, and in Japan.
Her prolific commercial art career includes botanical watercolors and nature studies that decorate note cards, placemats, textiles, Battersea enamel boxes, and educational materials. Her illustrations appear on postage stamps, books, and magazines.
Watkins’ many clients include:
Walt Disney Co., Tiffany & Co., Caspari, B. Shackman & Co., Addison Wesley-Scott Foresman, Harcourt Brace, Houghton Mifflin, McGraw-Hill, Options, Oxford University Press, Prentice Hall, Rodale Press, Scholastic, Golden Books, Dover, Book-of-the-Month, and The New York Times.
A recent watercolor of the gardens at Dandelion Cottage by Leslie Watkins.Jennifer Almquist
Jennifer Almquist: Tell me about life in Dandelion Cottage.
Leslie Watkins: Dandelion Cottage is my tiny homestead in Norfolk designed as an experience in “living off the land” on just one acre. I named it Dandelion Cottage because I feel like I blew into Norfolk like a weed, like I didn’t belong here, and I loved it. I sent down this big, long taproot because I wasn’t going to leave. The seeds go off on the wind when I share my creative inspiration with other people. I don’t know where they go, I don’t know what they’re going do, yet I hope that they’ll carry on the tradition of this natural creative inspiration.
Small as it is, with the help of my cheerful and hard-working flock of Bantam chickens, I produce much of my own food supply in season. Honeybees help pollinate the fruits and flowers. My chickens live free range and eat bugs, scraps, seeds, fallen apples, small fruits and greens. They provide eggs, manure, and laughter. I have bred Bantam chickens (which are 1/5 the size of standard chickens) for 18 years, such as Bearded Belgian D’Avers, Seabrights, and Dutch Bantams.
My partner is an ethnobotanist. On our first date (thirteen years ago) at the Southfield Store, he talked to me for an hour about Heirloom tomatoes. His knowledge and wisdom are invaluable.
JA: You are a Master Gardener?
LW: Yes, I am a Connecticut Master Gardener. I have a certificate in horticulture. I design, renovate, and maintain gardens in Northwest Connecticut. Currently, I am creating a garden of native species alongside the Norfolk Library. I want children to be able to see the plantings from inside the library. My own cottage gardens are filled with flowers blooming in mass succession. There’s a fragrant white garden with cimicifuga, hydrangeas, phlox, a fringe tree and punctuated in autumn with blue asters. The central peony bed is filled with lush blooms in June. Old fashioned roses and butterflies are everywhere. My garden design illustrations have been published in Rodale’s Perennial Combinations and in Fine Gardening, Horticulture, Kitchen Gardener, and in The New York Times.
JA: How did you become a designer for Tiffany?
LW: The head of the Art Students League, Rosina, called me to her office. “Tiffany called- they want a studio assistant. I want you to get this job.” I had never done commercial work, but that night I put together a portfolio and trotted down to Tiffany design studio on 5th Ave. and 57th St, the most expensive property in the world at the time and went to the 9th floor design studios. Tiffany designed jewelry for kings and queens, for the aristocracy, and the White House. They hired me. I worked with 6 or 7 designers who specialized in different areas: jewelry, china, silver, and stationary. The designers, who did brilliant botanical designs, took me under their wing. I was hired by the International Philatelic Association in New York to create a series of stamps. Using watercolors, I designed a souvenir sheet of nocturnal animals for Lesotho, a series of food crops like mangoes for the Maldives, and a World Health Organization stamp for Uganda.
JA: Tell me about your early life.
LW: I’m a New Yorker through and through. My parents were born in Brooklyn and Queens. Generations of my family had a printing business, John B. Watkins Company down on 9 Murray Street, NYC. My parents divorced; my mother remarried when I was 10. I had a lot of adversity in my life, but I always kind of landed on my feet. I feel I’ve got a powerful Angel watching out for me.
When I was a little girl, around three, my mother and I went to visit my grandmother in Brooklyn. Aunt Flossie showed me how to make a box. I was absolutely mesmerized. I must have made fifty boxes. I just thought it was an amazing piece of magic. My father was a printer brought home reams of paper so I could sketch and draw.
I was an incredibly shy kid. I literally grew up in the woods with dogs, no other kids. I still don’t know how to socialize, truly. It took all my courage to sit next to this older girl on our school bus to watch her draw the most beautiful horses I had ever seen. I was enraptured. It made such an impression to see people draw. It was like magic to create something out of nothing. I was always an optimist who felt that if I could share my love of nature that it would inspire other people to love nature, develop a reverence, and help take care of it.
JA: Now what are your plans?
LW: I want to get back to painting now. I got further and further away from my painting while running my garden business. Friends of mine who have gone on to be well-known artists wonder what happened to Leslie for twenty years. Well, I designed my Olana, like Frederic Church. Dandelion Cottage was never going to be an estate, but I knew it would be the cutest darn cottage it could. I was creating my life.
Now, I’m kind of scrambling. I must resurrect my career. I want to create a new body of work and a new audience. I can distinguish myself with watercolor. I have the credentials, the history, the background, and the ability. This September I’ll be teaching watercolor classes in the beautiful natural light in the Arcanum Building Annex in Norfolk. I’m also going to be offering some holiday paper crafting workshops, because now is the time to start getting ready for Christmas.
In part, I have modeled my life on the lives of Tasha Tudor and Beatrix Potter, who is my favorite. I combine my backyard sustainability lifestyle, my reverence for nature, with my artwork. I wanted it all to connect. I want to live an authentic life.
LAKEVILLE — Barbara Meyers DelPrete, 84, passed away Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2025, at her home. She was the beloved wife of George R. DelPrete for 62 years.
Mrs. DelPrete was born in Burlington, Iowa, on May 31, 1941, daughter of the late George and Judy Meyers. She lived in California for a time and had been a Lakeville resident for the past 55 years.
Survivors, in addition to her husband, George, include son, George R. DelPrete II, daughter, Jena DelPrete Allee, and son Stephen P. DelPrete. Grandchildren; Trey, Cassidy, and Meredith DelPrete, Jack, Will and Finn Allee, and Ali and Nicholas DelPrete.
A Funeral Mass was held at St. Mary’s Church, Lakeville, on Saturday, Oct. 4. May she Rest in Peace.
Ryan Funeral Home, 255 Main St., Lakeville, is in care of arrangements.
To offer an online condolence, please visit ryanfhct.com
SHARON — Shirley Anne Wilbur Perotti, daughter of George and Mabel (Johnson) Wilbur, the first girl born into the Wilbur family in 65 years, passed away on Oct. 5, 2025, at Noble Horizons.
Shirley was born on Aug. 19, 1948 at Sharon Hospital.
She was raised on her parents’ poultry farm (Odge’s Eggs, Inc.).
After graduating from Housatonic Valley Regional High School, she worked at Litchfield County National Bank and Colonial Bank.
She married the love of her life, John, on Aug. 16, 1969, and they lived on Sharon Mountain for more than 50 years.
Shirley enjoyed creating the annual family Christmas card, which was a coveted keepsake.She also enjoyed having lunch once a month with her best friends, Betty Kowalski, Kathy Ducillo, and Paula Weir.
In addition to John, she is survived by her three children and their families; Sarah Medeiros, her husband, Geoff, and their sons, Nick and Andrew, of Longmeadow, Massachusetts, Shelby Diorio, her husband, Mike, and their daughters, Addie, Lainey and Lyla, of East Canaan, Connecticut,Jeffrey Perotti, his wife, Melissa, and their daughters, Annie, Lucy and Winnie, of East Canaan. Shirley also leaves her two brothers, Edward Wilbur and his wife Joan, and David Wilbur; two nieces, three nephews, and several cousins.
At Shirley’s request, services will be private.
Donations in her memory may be made to the Sharon Woman’s Club Scholarship Fund, PO Box 283, Sharon, CT 06069.
The Kenny Funeral Home has care of arrangements.
MILLERTON — Veronica Lee “Ronnie” Silvernale, 78, a lifelong area resident died Tuesday, Oct. 7, 2025, at Sharon Hospital in Sharon, Connecticut. Mrs. Silvernale had a long career at Noble Horizons in Salisbury, where she served as a respected team leader in housekeeping and laundry services for over eighteen years. She retired in 2012.
Born Oct. 19, 1946, at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, she was the daughter of the late Bradley C. and Sophie (Debrew) Hosier, Sr. Following her graduation from high school and attending college, she married Jack Gerard Silvernale on June 15, 1983 in Millerton, New York. Their marriage lasted thirty-five years until Jack’s passing on July 28, 2018.
Ronnie is survived by her daughter, Jaime Silvernale (Wm. MacDaniel, Sr.) of Millerton, her beloved grandson, Wm. MacDaniel, Jr.; two special nieces, Shannon and Rebecca and a special nephew Sean Hosier. In addition to her parents and husband, she was predeceased by her brother, Bradley C. Hosier, Jr. and her dear friend Ruth Fullerton of Millerton.
Visitation was private. A celebration of Ronnie’s life will be held in the future. Arrangements have been entrusted to the Scott D. Conklin Funeral Home, 37 Park Avenue, Millerton, NY 12546. To send an online condolence to the family or to plant a tree in Ronnie’s memory, please visit www.conklinfuneralhome.com
Christine Gevert, Crescendo’s artistic director, is delighted to announce the start of this musical organization’s 22nd year of operation. The group’s first concert of the season will feature Latin American early chamber music, performed Oct. 18 and 19, on indigenous Andean instruments as well as the virginal, flute, viola and percussion. Gevert will perform at the keyboard, joined by Chilean musicians Gonzalo Cortes and Carlos Boltes on wind and stringed instruments.
This concert, the first in a series of nine, will be held on Oct. 18 at Saint James Place in Great Barrington, and Oct. 19 at Trinity Church in Lakeville.
For those unfamiliar with Crescendo, the award-winning organization was founded in 2003 and brings lesser-known works from the Renaissance and Baroque periods — along with contemporary fusion pieces — to new life. Its performances often blend classical composition with nontraditional instrumentation for a refreshing new take on an established body of work.
Gevert, who is German, Chilean and American, is a conductor, keyboardist and musical scholar. As the multi-national, multi-lingual (German, Spanish and English) creative director, she is a veritable whirlwind of talent, professionalism and inspiration who conceives of new musical treats for her audiences. She also hires and nourishes local talent, sources internationally known vocal and instrumental professionals, and provides her audiences with well-researched program notes for each concert, packaged in lush, full-color programs that resemble illuminated manuscripts.
“It is the excitement about and dedication to the music, along with the prerequisite vocal and instrumental talent, that characterizes a Crescendo member,” said Gevert. “I don’t care about things like how old or young you are or where you’re from — it’s all about bringing these performers together to provide unforgettable musical experiences for its audiences.”
“Traditional audiences for classical music performances tend to skew older,” Gevert continued. “For that reason, I’ve embarked on an effort to reach younger listeners, and have done things like taken a Crescendo choral group to perform at Housatonic Regional High School. I’ve also launched an effort to recruit and train young singers in Baroque singing techniques so they can perform with our existing choral group.”
The upcoming 2025-26 season includes, among other performances, a solo recital and benefit concert on Nov. 22 by the international Baroque opera star and countertenor Nicholas Tamagna. The curated program will include works by Handel, Vivaldi, and Monteverdi.
Two dazzling Christmas concerts follow: on Dec. 6 and 7, Crescendo presents J.S. Bach’s “Sweet Comfort” cantata and Mass in G minor, featuring the full chorus and soloists with a period instrument orchestra. On Dec. 21, the annual Holiday Concert will be presented: “A Tapestry of Traditions: Unraveling the History of Christmas Carols,” with the entire Crescendo vocal ensemble and Gevert on organ.
For the full schedule, concerts details and ticket information, visit: www.crescendomusic.org