Lois Bender is a New York artist who interprets varied nature and garden themes, creating a fresh mix of painting, printmaking and mixed media. GardenSpiritsNY, her design brand with a national and international presence grew out of her retail art direction experience for Godiva Chocolates, pointing her towards the gift industry and her role as a retail product designer at the New York Botanical Garden. She was born into her aesthetic garden sensibility as the daughter of Flora Bloom & granddaughter of Hortense Bloom. Her present series of paintings using stencils, from a French technique known as Pochoir, grew out of her GardenspiritsNY botanical imagery.

With a B.A. (Hunter College, NY) and an MFA (Boston University) in Painting, she has been teaching art workshops in the Hamptons & NY for 20 years in locations as varied as an artist-in-residency for four years at Bridge Gardens (Bridgehampton), Wolffer Estate Vineyards, Southampton Arts Center, Sag Harbor Florist, etc. Bender paints in beautiful gardens in the Hamptons and teaches watercolor at The beautiful Baker House 1650, East Hamptons. Sara Nightingale Gallery, Sag Harbor represents her work in the Hamptons. She also teaches Watercolor Florals at the NY Botanical Garden, Bronx, NY.