ASBA Conference

By Judith Towers

Every third year the American Society of Botanical Artists holds its annual conference in Pittsburgh, PA. Five CVABA members attended the October conference and what an experience it is to find yourself among 227 botanical artists, many of whom are world renowned! The group was welcoming, sharing, and oh so inspiring!

https://www.asba-art.org/

Some favorite activities were the portfolio sharing where we could walk right up to tables of gorgeous work and talk to the artists about subjects, techniques, and materials.

Next came classes: Mushrooms: Painting Browns with Margaret Saylor was one of the highlights of the second day. Margaret brought many freshly picked mushrooms for our use, and taught us her technique for making the “ultimate brown” which was layered over short strokes of brighter blues, pinks, and yellows so that the colors mingled, creating a realistic but radiant glow. See some of Margaret’s work on the ASBA site:

https://www.asba-art.org/member-gallery/margaret-saylor

Each of us enjoyed the opportunity to visit the 15th International Exhibition of Botanical Art and Illustration at the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, within walking distance from our hotel.

http://www.huntbotanical.org/exhibitions/current/

Well worth a long visit is the nearby Phipps Conservatory. From the photos you can see that several prickly things, even the Dale Chihuly glass sculpture, caught my eye!

https://phipps.conservatory.org/visit-and-explore/

November Program: Leaves

By Judy Thomas

     Judith Towers kindly presented a program at the November, CVABA 2016 meeting, titled "Leaves." She brought in a variety of information about leaves, including: leaf specimens, posters, books, and handouts. We discussed leaf morphology and shared information on the many varieties of leaves. Judith even shared information about making dye from leaves, her special interest as a fiber artist. Judith shared leaf rubbing and drawings as well.  Thank you, Judith!

Fungus Foray – an Artist’s Palette Underground

Fungus Foray – an Artist’s Palette Underground            

 by Judith Towers

1. Mushroom foray
2. What we collected (small amounts, not enough for dyeing)
3. Hydnelllum aurantiacum – can make teals and blue-greens
4. Tapinella atrotomentosus – blue-greens and occasionally purples
5. Susan Hopkins’ samples
6. Many shades of Inonotus hispidus and Phaeolus schweinitzii
7. Hapilopilus nidulans - purple
8. Basket full of mushroom-dyed colors!

In September a friend and I ventured to The Mannings, a handweaving and handspinning shop in East Berlin, Pennsylvania. We were about to discover that hidden colors may be found in many mushrooms. Susan Hopkins was our mentor. She has studied mushroom identification and dyeing with mushrooms and teaches a number of classes on this fascinating and unusual subject.

We learned how to chop the mushrooms in small pieces, simmer them in a pot of hot water at 170°F, strain out the mushroom pieces and place skeins of wool into the pot. The skeins had been pretreated with a mordant such as alum to allow the color to permeate the wool fibers. If a mordant is not used, the color will not be as permanent or as bright. Using other mordants such as iron, tin, and copper produce different colors, but in our class we used only potassium alum and iron, the safest mordants.

When the wool skeins had simmered for an hour, also at 170°, the wool was ready to rinse and hang to dry. During the 4-day workshop we worked in teams of two and made new colors each day. Each of us came home with at least 14 ounces of dyed wool yarn – enough to make a vest!

Mushrooms and other fungi are no longer classified as plants, but are considered parasites living on other organisms on which they feed, or saprophytes, obtaining their food from dead organisms such as a decaying tree stump. Some are destructive like anthracnose, which cause dogwood and other shade trees to drop their leaves. Others are beneficial, breaking down organic matter for soil improvement, for medicine, and of course, providing delicious food for us!

Recently I cooked 4 different mushrooms found in my yard and in the woods near my home. I kept four small jars of mushroom “paint” and made a small drawing, painted entirely with my mushroom watercolors! Fun – you can be sure that more paintings with fungi are on my “basket” list !

Spotlight: Judith Towers

Happy One Year Anniversary, CVABA, with thanks to Judith Towers, who got us started!

Rosa 'Mrs. R.M. Finch' by Judith Towers

From Judith:  Rosa ‘Mrs. R.M. Finch’ is a delicate pink polyantha rose popular around 1900. I’d like to think that Grace Arents, Lewis Ginter’s niece, might have planted this very rose right near her home, Bloemendaal, where you still may find the rose today. In the early 1900’s Miss Arents lived in the modified Lakeside Wheel Clubhouse built by her uncle in the 1880’s. She must have considered the translation of Bloemendaal, “valley of flowers”, when she willed her property to the city of Richmond with the provision that it would become a botanical garden.¹ 

¹ www.lewisginter.org/about/history.php

Rosa 'Grimaldi' by Judith Towers

Rosa ‘Grimaldi’ is a floribunda rose found in the terraced rose garden at LGBG. Its color ranges from bright red-orange often striped with white, to salmon pink with purplish tones as blossoms age. Over a three-year time period I waited to study blossoms at just the right stage in order to complete this work. Being able to capture buds opening, petals curling, leaves dancing, and colors changing is at once the most compelling and challenging aspect of botanical art. It is almost as if we grow and change along with each plant.

                                                                                                Judith Towers

Just living is not enough, said the butterfly.

One must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower.
                                                            ~Hans Christian Andersen

Blog Managers Note:  Judith Towers is primarily responsible for the founding of our Artists' Circle, the CVABA,  She has been involved for years in the arts, as a teacher, fiber artist, spinner and botanical artist.  One of our members found this "blast from the past" regarding Judith:

This is from a 1994 "Spin Off" magazine article on Judith!

Thank you Judith, on behalf of all our members, for getting us started!