STORY BEHIND THE ART OF KELLY LEAHY RADDING
18th Annual International
American Society of Botanical Artists at The Horticultural Society of New York
A Piece of the North Woods
Nodding Ladies Tresses Orchid, Schreber’s Big Red Stem Moss, Running Club Moss, Hair Moss
Spiranthes cernua, Pleurozium schreberi, Lycopodium clavatum, Polytrichum commune
I had seen this orchid during other visits to New Hampshire in September and had tucked it away into the back of my mind to paint someday, but this was the first time I had seen a whole colony of them. I was vacationing in the North Woods of New Hampshire, on First Connecticut Lake and we went on a hike that brought us almost into Canada. To get to the trailhead you had to drive on dirt logging roads. I started to scan the ditches on the sides of the road to look for plants and came upon a colony of Nodding Ladies Tresses orchids. I began taking photographs of the orchid but soon came to realize that there was a whole tiny universe of plants growing alongside the orchid. I knew then I wanted to paint the orchid in its little microcosm of earth. One of my favorite paintings of all time is Albrecht Durer’s Great Piece of Turf, which I had the ultimate pleasure of seeing in person in the Albertina Museum in Vienna, Austria. I envisioned my painting as an homage to Durer, but a ‘North Woods’ version!
After conceiving the idea of the painting, I decided I would paint it on a more toned piece of calfskin so that I could use bodycolor to make the white flowers of the orchid stand out against the background. I found the perfect piece in my stash, it actually had veins that to me mimicked the running club moss, and patterning that complemented all the plants in the group. A match made in vellum painting heaven.
This painting does hold a special place in my heart as I was working on it while my mother was in home hospice care. I didn’t know how I was going to find the strength and focus to actually paint but I did have a deadline and I knew my mother wouldn’t want me to suspend everything just because of her. I found that I was able to lose myself in the minutiae of this tiny little world of plants, finding peace and solace in the concentration it took to paint it. It was fitting, as my mother’s love of nature started me on my own lifelong path of honoring nature with my art.
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Read more about this artist's work: 17th Annual International