STORY BEHIND THE ART OF DENISE WALSER-KOLAR

17th Annual International

American Society of Botanical Artists at The Horticultural Society of New York

Hyacinth

Hyacinthus orientalis

I was walking through Trader Joe's and saw this hyacinth. I thought it was the most beautiful hyacinth I had ever seen. All the different colors in the flowers, buds, and bulb were amazing. And it was amazing to me, when I dug up the bulb, that the colors in the bulb echoed the colors in the buds.

I was very brave and painted it on a piece of my precious Rory McEwen vellum. After Rory’s untimely death in 1982 at the age of 50, his family gave his unused vellum to James White at the Hunt Institute. Over the years, James and now Lugene Bruno have given sheets to various artists. Lugene gave me this one when my work was exhibited in the Hunt exhibition What We Collect: Recent Art Acquisitions, 2007–2012, 22 March to 30 June 2013. A special legacy.

I faced a significant challenge as I worked on this piece - I was extremely allergic to it! After I finished initial sketches and color studies, I had to keep it in the garage so I could breathe in my house! We had a polar vortex in Minnesota this past winter, so the plant immediately froze solid in the garage. It was interesting - it didn't freeze hard as a rock, but more like a plastic plant. But it did last longer that way! So any time I couldn't tell what to do from my sketches and photos, I would visit it out in the garage for a few minutes.

The very first thing that I ever painted in my very first watercolor class at the Minnesota School of Botanical Art was a small grape hyacinth. My mom has it hanging in her dining room. It's interesting to see the change in my work after years of practice and hard work.

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Read more about this artist's work:  Weird, Wild & Wonderful