STORY BEHIND THE ART OF SUSAN PETTEE

19th Annual International

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

Indian corn

Zea mays

After spending seven years in Paris, where North American gourds and squashes and Indian corn were not to be seen except rarely in a flower shop, I was blown away by the orgy of autumn color at a local farm’s store. The different colored corn kernels were striking - the colors are so intense! And the graphic quality of the husks, some of them folded like medieval draperies, was a fascinating contrast to the rows of multi-colored kernels.

I chose three multicolored corn cobs. Unlike most of my work, which is either entirely graphite or entirely watercolor, I mixed media for this work. The kernels presented an unusual problem because they were not only colored, they were also somewhat translucent and they had a shiny, reflective surface so that some of them reflected a little of the color of their neighbors. Thus I had to do each kernel separately, paying attention to the reflections and the extent to which light came through them. I drew them in graphite first, and for color I used the kind of colored pencils that turn into watercolor when wet, and finally, pure watercolor for shadows and darker areas. I hope viewers notice the extent to which each kernel is an individual in both form and color, and that the rows are not geometrically perfect but bend and curve intriguingly. 

Because I saw the husks as basically graphic, with the ribbed texture of their almost parallel veins, and because their color was rather drab in contrast to the colorful kernels, I used mainly graphite to emphasize the vibrating quality of the veins as they fold and turn. I also used a tiny bit of Graphicolor (colored graphite) on the husks. I hope viewers enjoy the drama of the husks as a contrast to the static kernels on the cobs. 

What is different about this compared to much of my recent work is that the subject is American. While living in Paris I was restricted to what I could find in flower shops. The parks were too tidy to have interesting weeds! And for the past several years since returning to the U.S., I was mostly working on illustrating a book by Mary Taylor Simeti, a friend who married a Sicilian over fifty years ago and who has written half a dozen books about Sicily. She had always wanted to write about the wildflowers at the archaeological sites there and asked me to do the illustrations. We have finally finished and are looking for a publisher. Now I am working on local plants and loving it.

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Read more about this artist’s work: 15th Annual International