A Focus on Native Perennials

BOTANICAL ART TODAY WILDFLOWER WATCH

Botanical Artist

Volume 28, Issue 3

September 2022

STORY BY Christina Lovering

SERIES COORDINATOR Gillian Rice

Art has always been a part of Christina Lovering’s life, but she began pursuing botanical art in 2012 after completing a master’s degree related to her teaching career. While studying, in addition to having a full-time teaching job, she realized that no matter what she did for her day job, she needed time for art. Soon after completing the graduate program, she enrolled in Botanical Drawing 1 at Chicago Botanic Garden and fell in love with the meditation of observing and drawing plants so closely. She earned a certificate of botanical illustration in 2016. Much of her work is in mixed media, pen, and watercolor. Currently, her focus is on the native plants in Illinois using those she grows in her yard as reference.

WITHIN A YEAR OF BEGINNING my botanical illustration coursework, my partner and I bought our first house and joined the ranks of yard owners in the Chicago suburbs. I was so excited to have my own patch of green to grow plants that I could draw from any time! At first, I loved the idea of cultivating my own food (and still do) as well as any beautiful flowers I could coax into growing, native or otherwise. Very quickly, I realized that I am a “perennial kind of girl,” not wanting to fuss with planting new flowers over and over each season. From a practical standpoint, I loved the idea of native perennials, and from an ecological one, this has become my small contribution to the nature that surrounds us.

Over the years I have attended permaculture workshops, pollinator seminars, and other conservation and environmental events, but, oddly enough, it wasn’t until my local ASBA circle, Reed-Turner Botanical Artists, took on invasive species in 2016 as the subject of a traveling exhibition that I really began to focus on the importance of native plants as part of a healthy ecosystem.

In the paradox of drawing beautiful but environmentally dangerous plants, I came upon a problem: our message of the danger of invasives will not come through in artistic depictions of these plants alone. Our exhibitions showed their beauty (which many of these plants do possess), and, while we included information about the harm the invasives do to local or regional ecosystems, many viewers just saw a space full of beautiful botanical artwork. As my mother said at one of our openings, “What’s the problem with these plants? They are beautiful.” These seemingly innocuous plants surround us and, better yet, they grow with little effort from us. How do we dissuade people from allowing these plants in their yards, gardens, and roadsides? I will admit, I allowed purple loosestrife to grow for a season or two in my yard even though it is devastating to our shorelines in the Midwest. I justified it because it was in my yard, far from any shoreline. But alas, we are all connected, and I eventually realized the error of my thinking and removed the plants.

My contemplation brought me to this very moment in which my concerns for our planet and local ecosystems are connected to most of my current artwork. As for my yard, I have made it my personal project to slowly replace the lawn with native plants. What started as a small butterfly garden to cover an area where a tree was removed has grown into what I lovingly refer to as my micro-prairie.

I find myself invested in how each of the plants grows and changes within a season, as well as over several seasons. My care for these plants and their close availability informs my artwork. I can monitor the growth of each plant and notice new and returning insects and birds each season. I love to sketch and journal about these happenings, and slowly produce finished pieces that show these fascinating relationships.

Like many of us, I feel an urgent need to observe, research, create, and share as much as I can about the beauty and fragility of the natural world. Of course, there is never enough time in the day, so I remind myself of the importance of the journey, and that each observation, new plant discovery, sketch, and painting is one piece of a larger accomplishment.

My artistic process usually begins with an interest in a plant, a creature, or a relationship among plants and insects or animals. In the summer of 2020, I encountered for the first time the Illinois bundleflower Desmanthus illinoensis at a city park. It was the end of the summer, and the flowers had gone to seed. They create intricate pod clusters that resemble a round pinecone at first glance. The leaves, on the other hand, look almost fern like. The pod cluster began my exploration into my new personal discovery. This plant is native to much of the US, and its seeds supply nutritional benefits to wild birds.

That winter, I found an online native and heirloom plant shop that sold this plant as a bare root and purchased two for my yard. In the spring of 2021, I watched them emerge and grow through the seasons. I documented the leaves and the flowers as they changed throughout late summer into fall. The winter brought a good opportunity to study the pod structure closely with my digital microscope. My sketches and study pages evolved into a finished piece included in Reed-Turner Botanical Artists natives-focused exhibition, Naturally Beautiful - Midwest’s Native Plants, at the Heller Nature Center in Highland Park, Illinois, July-August, 2022.

As I watch the native plants in my yard, I continue to be sent on more adventures than I will ever be able to document: a familiar bird with a niche role in the Midwest, or a plant well- suited to our wetter, rainier springs these past several years. I am inspired by the ingenuity and interconnectedness that we can see in nature. Just as many of us in ASBA are aware of our role in preserving and educating about nature, I too find myself aligning more and more to that goal in my artwork. My hope is to awaken joy or awe in seeing the small but mighty bits of nature around us, and to create a desire to join in the conservation efforts whether large or small.