STORY BEHIND THE ART OF CAROL E. HAMILTON

Weird, Wild, & Wonderful

Second New York Botanical Garden Triennial Exhibition

2014 - 2016

Wisteria Diptych

Wisteria floribunda

The ASBA/NYBG Call for Entry for the Weird, Wild and Wonderful show promised to develop an exhibition that would inform and entertain visitors. The goal of the exhibition was to turn Garden visitors into plant lovers. This inspired me because I am pleased to be among those whose mission it is to bring contemporary botanical art to modern audiences.

In terms of selecting a subject for this exhibition, as usual, the plant chose me. I very much like the Japanese Hill-and-Pond garden at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. I am irresistibly attracted to the flowering wisteria there in spring, and I painted the flowers for inclusion in their Florilegium collection of paintings. I heard about the seed pods but they were not in season, so I bided my time and waited for the seasons to change, ultimately tracking down my prey!

I considered several other weird, wild and wonderful plants before making my final selection. As an avid reader of the classic “between the wars” mystery stories, I happily researched the use of poisonous plants in the works of Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers and more recently, P.D. James. Also, I found the peanut a fascinating plant of two faces – both known as an allergen in developed countries, and as a highly nutritious food stuff called “Plumpy’Nut”, produced to help fight malnutrition.

But what plant could be more alluring than the wisteria? Opulent and fragrant in spring, the racemes dangle enticingly. This is the wisteria plant we know best. The vines wind counter-clockwise and are strong enough to pull down fence, tree or pergola. Then it takes all summer for the velvety green seed pods to develop. Visitors and particularly children are strongly drawn to both flower and pod at their own risk! Carefully note -- wisteria blossoms may be eaten raw or cooked, but the rest of the plant is TOXIC! And do not forget to remove the stems!

As autumn moves in, the pods become woody, and picking them is tempting. It is not until the seed pods are dry and brown on the vine that they explode, casting their seeds a distance from the plant. The vine cleverly employs a hearty dose of EXPLOSIVE DISPERSAL, wherein the seed pod opens and flings its bounty from the parent vine that gives it the light it needs. The characteristic CRACK! of the opening seed pod announces – at once both nourishing and DEADLY! Unlike many edible nuts and seeds, as few as two seeds can kill a child.

I am meticulous about following Call for Entry instructions about image and framed sizes because I seem to require a lot of paper to tell the story of my subject. I do not ordinarily set out to create a large painting, but it sometimes happens! In the case of the wisteria, I composed the pod-laden vine as a diptych, with the pods life size, as best to tell its story. The panels of the diptych, each 23” x 27”, are not attached but framed separately. They are composed to be hung together, abutting the frames or allowing up to one inch between panels. Working large is always a challenge; controlling the watercolor makes it impossible to paint upright on an easel. I have worked totally on hands and knees on watercolor board on my largest painting (12 feet across and 40 inches tall). The wisteria was painted entirely on my dining room table (seating for eight). 

To me, this is a painting of the wisteria vine overgrowing its support. It’s spooky and the pods are dangling overhead, dripping from the support, ready for Halloween. I hope that the viewer will appreciate the fuzzy seeds of the wisteria as much as their glorious blossoms, and feel as if he is walking under a wisteria-covered pergola in late autumn. But take care, walk quickly under the pergola before the pods explode! They are “beautiful but deadly, and poisonous to children!”

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Read more about this artist's work: Following in the Bartrams' Footsteps