THE NATURAL

LONG-TIME MUI WO RESIDENT, ILLUSTRATOR AND ARTIST SALLY GRACE BUNKER HAS MADE A THIRD CAREER OF DOCUMENTING HONG KONG’S NATURAL WONDERS. ELIZABETH KERR REPORTS

Sally Grace Bunker calls the Mui Wo village house she shares with her husband Bob a “proper English house.” She says it with a chuckle, acknowledging the fact that the modest, sub-tropical jungle that surrounds it is far from English, which suits the teacher and botanical artist’s Raynaud syndrome just fine. The inherited condition makes it hard for her to physically keep warm, and it’s messed with her fingers, but it hasn’t stopped her art. Suffice it to say she’s the lone dissenter when summer hits full force.

As committed as Sally is to Hong Kong, and to Mui Wo where the couple has lived for 25 years, the house is, indeed, English; and a home of fully lived lives. Sally’s first-floor study is crammed with books about art and plants, and two desks tailored to her needs – one with a computer, scanner and printer, the other a drafting space littered with paints and brushes. The drawing desk is by the window, Sally’s natural lightbox.

This desk is where Sally put in seven years’ worth of work as illustrator for Portraits of Trees of Hong Kong and Southern China (with Richard MK Saunders and Chun-chiu Pang), released in 2019. Prints and originals are propped up against the lower shelving, which Tia, the year-old rescue dog, manages not to knock over.

Sally herself is lean and fit, decked out in cashmere, blue jeans and swanky Ray-Ban shades, a shock of short-cropped silver curls, the only true indicator she’s 74. Bob comes in with a proper tea service (cups, saucers, milk jug, sugar bowl), enticingly loaded with coffee.

Teacher And Principal

A native of Kent, Sally took a circuitous route to a third career as a botanical artist. After getting married in 1971, Bob accepted the banking job that bought the couple and their young sons – one now in the UK working in IT, the other just down the road in Mui Wo – to Hong Kong, and once the kids were in school, Sally took a job in her university specialty, physical education, among other subjects.

Like most transplants, Hong Kong’s natural environment surprised her, and when they discovered Lantau through weekend stays with friends, all bets were off. “I said to Bob, ‘Oh, this is lovely! Wouldn’t it be nice if we had our own place?’ So we bought a little place in Shui Hau and spent every weekend there.” At least until they relocated permanently.

It was in Mui Wo that Sally’s second career as a school principal began. “I was teaching environmental studies at schools and I was doing a lot of outdoor ‘work’ with Parkview International School,” she recalls. “The best way to teach kids about the environment is to get them out there, and I thought the only way I’d be able to do that – in my 50s –was to qualify as the principal of a school. So I did. It nearly killed me!” she finishes with a laugh. That was the genesis of LEAFY, South Lantau’s first international kindergarten, which Sally ran until her retirement.

“I wrote a curriculum based on learning through nature,” she says. “And not just learning but being informed. I got a few students to start with, and it just grew from there. Locals wanted their kids to learn language my way and it’s still going today, as part of Lick Hang Kindergarten.”

Botanical Artist

But Sally wasn’t done. In 2009, at 60, she set her sights on becoming a professional botanical painter. Kind of. She was always keen on art, and though she didn’t study it beyond A-Level, she’d made it a hobby, “fiddling around” with painting, and sketching with on-the-weekend artist groups. Around the time she retired, a friend noted her patience, observational skills and strong technique, and insisted she get some kind of formal certification.

“She recommended a course in the UK, in Rutland. So when we were holidaying one year, I did a one-week course in a manor house in a village. It was very English and you had to dress for dinner, and go into the drawing room to take your sherry,” she chuckles again. “Then we were welcomed to the ‘advanced botanical art class’ and I just about dropped my sherry.” She shakes her head. “Later my friend said, ‘You wouldn’t have done it if I’d told you.’ She was right.”

The course was run by renowned instructor Anne-Marie Evans, and led to a three-year distance learning course with the London Art College, followed by an SBA Diploma in Botanical Art, in which Sally gained a distinction. Now a Fellow of the UK Society of Botanical Artists, Sally uses her skills to take up projects that record Hong Kong’s beautiful flora and fauna, including the book with Saunders and Pang, which painstakingly documents 109 of 390 Hong Kong tree species and features over 100 of her watercolours.

Speaking of her art, Sally says: “I am lucky to live on Lantau. My garden is a great inspiration to me, and a microcosm of the biodiversity we have here. I have planted things like bougainvillea and Chinese privet, which attract and encourage birds, butterflies and dragonflies. As dusk falls, the bats which roost in my fan-palm come and dart around in the twilight. The flowers and trees in my garden provide many of the subjects of my work.”

Green Queen

Sally describes the creative process as hugely satisfying –and laborious – which begs the question, why not just take a photograph? Why go to all the time and effort of producing a drawing? She nods, appreciating the logic, but points out that botanical artists document a species and its life cycle, while photographers capture only a moment in time.

“A photograph, however close-up, cannot convey all the details of a plant, or find its essence,” Sally adds. “A botanical painting shows the details of its growth, its flowers, its fruit, its structure, everything about it. With a photo you can’t do that. It’s just one shot. A botanical illustration is a work of art, but it also highlights scientific information.”

An avid gardener (founder of SLUGS – the South Lantau United Gardeners, she also worked with WWF-HK to restore the gardens at Island House Conservation Studies Centre in Tai Po), Sally is a firm believer that you can never do too much to highlight Hong Kong’s natural beauty, and how lucky we are to be surrounded by it.

“When I retired, I just knew I had something else to do in my life,” she reasons, before launching into a story about walking her dogs and constantly running into giant spider webs. “I asked myself, ‘How do I keep running into these webs?’ The answer, of course, was I was rushing. So I slowed down, and I looked around and thought, ‘How many of these beautiful trees have I rushed past?’ And I thought I should do something about this. Someone needs to record all this. That was the spark.”

Recently, Sally has been experimenting with butterflies and shells, in addition to her beloved trees and flowers. If we’re lucky, her watercolours will be part of an exhibition at the University of Hong Kong this year, straddling the line between art and science. You’ll know an authentic Bunker when you see it – look for the tiny spider in the signature.

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