Lunch begins at Noon - Meeting begins at 12:30 pm
LCOME GAIL BEVERIDGEJACKSONVILLE ARBORETUM
As a state licensed and LEED certified interior designer, Ms. Beveridge has practiced in the field for over 35 years, twenty of those years as founder/president of PeopleSpace, Inc., an interior design firm with numerous signature projects for major corporations and financial institutions to its credit. After merging the firm into Gresham, Smith and Partners, a regional architecture, engineering and interior design firm, she helped GS&P expand its market share in the commercial design field, put a capable design team in place, and then left to pursue new interests. She now works as an artist and independent interior design consultant on selected projects.
Artist/Sculptor
By reducing her workload in the design field, Ms. Beveridge was able to devote the time to develop her skills as a fine craft artist. Combining her background in design, drawing and woodworking, she uses the hardshell gourd as the anchor form to create her three-dimensional mixed media works.
Since her first juried show in 2000, Ms. Beveridge has participated in numerous juried & invitational shows and exhibitions throughout the nation. She has received several awards and one Best of Show, and was awarded an Art Ventures grant from Community Foundation at Jacksonville. Most recently, her work was included in the Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens’ Art Ventures 20 Year Retrospective exhibition.
Volunteer Activities
Presently, Ms. Beveridge serves on the Board of the Jacksonville Arboretum & Gardens and as co-chair of the Arboretum’s 2012 Plein Air Painting Event ‘A Brush with Nature’.
She also serves on the Art & Soul Gallery committee of the Women’s Center of Jacksonville.
Ms. Beveridge has also been a docent at MOCA Jacksonville, an interviewer for the Veterans History Project and a long-term care ombudsman for the State of Florida.
The Jacksonville Arboretum & Gardens is one of Jacksonville's hidden treasures. For years, the property, owned by the city, went unused except as a buffer for a water reclamation facility on Millcoe Road off Monument Road near the Florida 9A overpass.The 120 acres that make up the Arboretum were owned from 1941 to 1961 by the Humphries Gold Mining Co., which strip-mined the area for zircon and other minerals used to make titanium.
When the mining operation ended, what was left behind were rolling sand dunes.
For the next half-century the land was mostly left alone, except for the occasional invader who came to dump trash there.
That gave the site the chance to revert to a natural state, one that encompasses 13 distinct ecosystems. As a result, "the landscape within the arboretum contains almost all the natural beauty the First Coast offers in one location, from marshes to xeric rosemary scrub uplands," said Rachel Sulkers, a senior scientist with Environmental Services Inc., who serves on the arboretum's board and leads guided tours there.
A non-profit board was established and leased the land from the city in 2006 with the idea of creating an arboretum. Volunteers went to work, cleaning up the garbage that had been dumped and creating six trails through the grounds. Those trails range from 800 feet to one mile.
The arboretum is now open to the public at no charge during daylight hours seven days a week. Dogs are allowed as long as they are kept on a leash.
