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Summary

 

As a Social Artist and founder of the reforestation campaign Rainforest ECObank in Brazil, Alana Lea integrates her life's experiences to reveal a deep sense of underlying order and purpose.

 

The unifying force in Alana's diverse creative history is a desire to share her respect for the natural world, while leaving a beautiful footprint for future generations. She has applied her talents in many media: watercolor, digital collage, landscape and textile design, internationally for more than 25 years to benefit causes that serve peace and the environment.

 

Her most wonderful moment came in late 2010 when she was able to donate 1,000 rainforest trees for reforestation in her homeland, Brazil. Globo TV came to document the event. Since then thousands of trees have been planted, and reforestation has become her top priority.

 

In 2012 she created the affiliate marketing program iGiveTrees to enable organizations to benefit from commissions by becoming part of a global supply chain for rainforest renewal. She is now represented by literary agent Bill Gladstone, for her forthcoming book "Trees of Transformation."

 

 


 

Work History

Rainforest ECO, LLC

2008 - Present
ECO Textile Designer & Rainforest Advocate 

 

Alana Lea is a voice for the rainforest. 

 

Born in Rio de Janeiro, Alana moved to the United States as soon as she could walk, and only learned that she emerged from the most diverse and endangered rainforest on earth, half a century later.

 

She had instinctively cultivated a passion for the plant kingdom as a horticulturalist for more than thirty years, while later telling its stories as a visual artist. In addition to the creation of Tropiflora, a successful tropical nursery business, these years yielded exhibits of her botanical watercolors and digital collages at the Bruce Museum of Arts and Sciences, the Smithsonian Institution and Museum of Natural History. 

 

Her rainforest botanicals are printed on organic silk, hemp and cotton fabrics, with water based pigment inks, to raise both awareness and funds for the renewal of the Atlantic Rainforest in Brazil.

 

Alana is also the founder of the Rainforest ECObank reforestation project in Brazil, supporting subsistence farmers to become stewards of the renewed forests. The iGiveTrees campaign invites organizations around the world to participate in the benefits of cooperative marketing.

 

Alana Lea

1983 - Present
Botanical Artist 

 

Alana Lea is a botanical artist whose work integrates old-world character with contemporary verve. She harmonizes imagery with informative and imaginative wordplays, transforming them into spirited showpieces. Her signature works are digital collage featuring exquisitely rendered floral watercolors in a precise, yet lively style. 

 

The eclectic appeal of Alana's work has garnered the attention of such diverse clients as the Smithsonian Institution, Fine Gardening Magazine and the Amazon Herb Company. Her paintings and prints reside in private collections throughout the United States, Canada, Britain and Brazil. They have been sold in the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, exhibited at the Bruce Museum of Arts and Sciences and at the Smithsonian Institution in partnership with the US Botanical Garden in Washington, D.C.

 

Alana's passion for plants springs from a lifelong awe of the natural world. Her relationship with the plant kingdom as explorer, importer, gardener, herbalist, horticulturalist and entrepreneur has been a boon to her career as a botanical storyteller. 

 

 

Tropiflora

1973 - 1979
Retail & Wholesale - Nursery & Plant Shop 

Tropiflora was the first of its kind, a tropical plant store specializing in rare and collectible plants in the early 1970's. A result of Alana's fascination with the plants of the Puerto Rican rainforests, she began importing orchids and bromiliads from Central and South America, and educating her clientele in Portland, Oregon about tropical flora.

Custom

Alana has lived in Brazil, France, England, Scotland, Morocco, Puerto Rico, Canada. She speaks conversational French and Spanish, and her Portuguese is coming along nicely.

Areas of Focus

Rainforest ECO Fabrics

Rainforest ECO fabrics

 

Founded in 2009, Rainforest ECO offers organic, fair trade silk, hemp, and cotton fabrics printed with Alana Lea's original botanical designs. Wholesale yardage or licensed designs are available to the trade through Source 4 Style.

Rainforest ECObank

Rainforest ECObank

 

Rainforest ECO has raised funds for and  donated 4,194 rainforest trees to residents of Cunha and Lorena, Sao Paulo state, Brazil. The project, which aims to organically reforest the Atlantic Rainforest, was embraced by the international non-profit WeForest in 2011.

Rainforest Art

Rainforest Action Art

Illustrations first created in 2002 for a book on the healing plants of the Amazon Rainforest became the starting point for Rainforest ECO to generate awareness and funds for reforestation of vital rainforests in Brazil in 2009.

Smithsonian Institution

Smithsonian Institute Exhibit

In 2002 Alana was invited to exhibit botanical watercolors and collages at the Smithsonian Institution, as well as licensing her botanical art  to the museum for signage for their bi-annual orchid exhibits in conjunction with the US Botanic Garden.

 

In 2004 her botanical prints and a tee-shirts were sold in the Museum of Natural History Gift shop.