Observations in Nature
Beverly Duncan
An Online Exhibition Series Exploring an Artist's Journey with Nature
Observations in Nature is a new online exhibition series based on my curiosity with how artists select subjects and the origins of thought and inspiration they bring to the drawing table. The goal is to uncover the layers of meaning behind the botanical portrait. Our journey through these questions enlightens us to the plethora of ideas behind the work and to derive a deeper appreciation for the artist and their art. You may click on each image below to view larger versions.
Respect and honoring nature in its pure form is a daily ritual for Beverly Duncan. The slow, mindful gathering of specimens carefully laid out on a studio table is the beginning of a personal portrait of the artist and her process. Duncan's Ashfield Compositions are the core of her purpose as a perpetual student of nature, particularly capturing the never ending beauty of her Western Massachusetts habitat. For Beverly Duncan, the act of seeing is equal to the act of painting and the outcome is a gift to all of us.
I hope you enjoy Beverly Duncan's Observations in Nature. Please visit the artist's page after the story for new, available work. Prices upon request.
What were the early influences and inspirations that drew you to botanical art? At what age did this discovery begin?
May Day is Lei Day in Hawaii
It wasn't until the early 1970's, in my early 20's, when I moved to a small town in New England, that I began to looks at plants with interest and for detail. In hindsight, I was now living in an environment with plants in woods and pastures that were recognizable, that made sense to me, perhaps because I had seen images of such environments in the books and European paintings I had come upon.
I had lived the first two decades in other, diverse environments, the first 12 years happily in tropical Hawaii and the following decade in the arid, golden hills of the Bay Area, California. During those decades, there was little encouragement to look and learn about the natural world, let alone draw or paint, though I have wonderful memories of being outside as a child. College gave me time to slowly emerge as a visual practitioner and graphic illustrator.
When I moved to Ashfield, my home town for all these years, I had a first summer to roam the woods while figuring out a new life. It was a typical summer, I learned, with afternoon showers and so much green, a comfort I hadn't realized that I yearned for since leaving Hawaii. My instincts guided me to the wild plants, about which I began to learn. A slow start, it wasn't until age 51, or 30 years later, that I met Jessica Tcherpnine, attended an ASBA conference, sold a first leaf painting, and received much encouragement. I finally was able to define myself as a botanical illustrator and painter.
Does the country and place you live in influence your stylistic interpretation of botanical art?
The European tradition of presenting accurate botanical paintings certainly strongly influenced me. The Books of Hours presented realistic border paintings, full of flowers, insects, feathers, and more. Then I discovered other Renaissance painters, well-known now, Joris Hoefnagel, Giovanna Garzoni, Jan van Kessel, Elder and Junior, Georg Flagel, and, centuries later, Englishman Eliot Hodgkin. Japanese prints of nature evoked the same sense of awareness of environment.
I imagined the painters of these wonders walking to work, to a cubby/cell, picking plants and catching fauna found along the way, to then incorporate these treasures into their day's paintings. Those people had found and recorded such beauty in the “small” of their natural worlds! I wanted to do that too, painting the personal world of my western Massachusetts environment!
As you are defined as a botanical artist, what does this mean to you? The categorizations of botanical art as scientific and illustrative force a different conversation, can you speak to contemporary botanical painting as fine art and how this shapes your work?
Early on, as I presented my paintings, I encountered others who told me that my type of painting was not “art,” that I was merely copying nature. I shrugged those comments off instead, happy when another person expresses amazement at some detail of a plant that I have painted, or discover the ladybug beetle that indeed did crawl onto the paper while painting. In one definition of “fine art,” art is to express an emotion or idea. If a person finds beauty in a painting, can see my love and awe for a plant that I have painted, then I am content.
I have spent much of my professional/adult life also working as an illustrator, easily defined by the practical need for illustrations for publication. My paintings, in watercolor and graphite, are not constrained by those definitions. I am proud to be a part of the global, contemporary reach of this tradition of observing the natural world.
What subjects do you return to again and again and why? Do you take risks when choosing subjects?
While hoping to maintain the standards of botanical painting, I am most interested in grouping specimens from my western Massachusetts world, just as the early role models did, finding unity within a composition. I have called these Ashfield Compositions. Whether a summer composition of material gathered during one week or a composition united by colors of flora and fauna found during a whole season of growth, or by shapes, I am inspired by and paint my world, walking around my small, somewhat chaotically planted gardens with borders of fruits, nuts and flowers, or into the woods behind, usually eyes to the ground, picking up specimens of interest. I am not concerned with whether I am painting “fine art.” I paint inspiration found in my limited world.
What do you want people to think, learn, or know from your work?
I would like viewers of my work to see and understand that these Ashfield Compositions are happy, spontaneous expressions of my life in my little piece of the world. The subject matter isn't exotic. The groupings often elicit a sense of chaos, an unruliness with the choices made. Life, or at least my gardens, are like that!
Describe a challenging subject you have conquered, lessons learned, and how it affects future projects.
About a decade ago I was able to begin to combine my love of artist's books with my focus on western Massachusetts flora and small fauna in to a series of little books. Over the decades of painting, I had also been specifically observing, sketching and learning about the native trees and shrubs of the area. I pulled that information into a series of 20 little, 5” x 5" hand-made books in which I have recorded the life cycles of these plants, always beginning with the seed/fruit. Titled SEEDS, this series was recently acquired by the Smith College Mortimer Rare Books Collection. Another 2014 series of weekly paintings, of flora from either cultivated or uncultivated, on 3” x 3” paper, housed in hand-created boxes, was acquired at the same time. Having a college community find interest and value in this type of observation, including of environmental changes, encourages me to continue my work, to find the wonder of this western Massachusetts world, and to record it in sketches, paintings, books, and perhaps other formats!
I recently completed a commission that combined my love of composition, this time combining flora and fauna of both the east and west coast, representing the client's bicoastal life.
In the fall of 2001, soon after the Twin Towers attack, a solo exhibition of my paintings opened at Ursus Books & Prints, New York. One purchaser commented on it being a time to appreciate beauty, that my paintings were an antidote to the horror that had just happened. What better way to be inspired to continue my work!