Worldwide Day of Botanical Art: America’s Flora Show

I had no idea that the US Botanic Garden was located on the Washington DC Mall, right across the street from the Capitol, until I visited it last week for the opening of the America’s Flora botanical art show.

The US Botanic Garden Conservatory with the Capitol in the background.

The large conservatory has several beautiful garden rooms with extensive plant collections from around the world.

The 200-year old garden’s stated goal is to demonstrate “the aesthetic, cultural, economic, therapeutic and ecological importance of plants to the well-being of humankind”, which fits right in with this show highlighting the beauty and fragility of America’s native plants. The show is part of the Worldwide Botanical Art initiative, with societies in 25 countries hosting botanical art shows featuring the native plants of that country, all with opening festivities on May 18th.

The opening of the America’s Flora show at the US Botanic Garden.

I had the amazing privilege to participate in this show when two of my paintings were selected by a jury of four artists, botanists and educators.  Both paintings are watercolor on Kelmscott vellum, which is a type of hand-prepared calfskin parchment.

Native Violets and Threatened Oregon Silverspot Butterfly
Viola glabella, Viola adunca, Speyeria zerene hippolyta

Winter Gale: Oregon Maple, Acer macrophyllum

My favorite part of the celebration was hearing the artists talk about their work during a tour of the exhibit.  If you like hearing backstories too, the ASBA asked each artist to write a few paragraphs of background about their work.  You can see their paintings and read the artists comments here.  The backstories for my paintings are here.

Several new botanical art societies formed so their country could participate in this initiative, and then went on to host a well-attended botanical art show in a major venue.  I am excited to see what the future holds for these new groups.  The beauty and necessity of plants is a story that every culture can relate to, and at the beginning of each story is the native plants of that region.  Let’s protect, appreciate and be astonished at their beauty.