DEBORAH SHAW - WIT AND WONDER

2020 ASBA James White Service Award for Dedication to Botanical Art

by Lugene Bruno

A conversation with Deborah Shaw always reveals her wit, determination, and resourcefulness. She spoke from her daughter and son-in-law’s home in Northern California where, since May, she and her husband have been assisting with the childcare of their grandson and newborn granddaughter during the pandemic. Descriptions of their workstations on card tables wedged between cardboard playhouses led to laughter about a last-minute request to change a live Zoom presentation to video for an online botanical art presentation. With the remote guidance of a friend, Deb cribbed together short videos from earlier presentations, but still had to dub a voice over. Imagine her environment: Windows shut and air purifiers running due to the acrid air from wildfires, and the continuous roar of chainsaws during the cleanup of wind-downed trees. Imagine her solution: A toddler’s table and chair (also ergonomically perfect for creating demonstration artwork) in a compact storage closet converted into a soundproof recording studio with bed pillows and couch cushions. The presentation was a success, but Deb was grateful that no video was made of her during its preparation.

For those who don’t know Deb, she started out as an analytical philosophy major and switched to fine arts, which eventually led to web design and the overarching tenet, “if this, then that.”

At the time, fine art was abstract and conceptual, so botany and figure drawing classes were her lifeline. Contour drawing the figure enabled her to translate into line what she saw through a microscope. Design courses and detailed observations made in a professor’s orchid greenhouse, as well as related jobs in graphic design and plant illustration, led her to botanical art more than 20 years ago. Painting is Deb’s medication and daily practice. She constantly experiments with what shouldn’t work in a composition and shared two artworks that succeeded and failed for this article. In Sonoran White and Pima Club Heirloom Wheat in Flower (Triticum aestivum), Deb has created a subtle tension in the space between two inflorescences that emerge out of a dusky field of graphite—the one a rigid barrier, the other an invitation for exchange. Her watercolor Finger Lime (Citrus australasica) is an example of one that worked better in her head. Deb tackled some of her own challenges with paint on paper. She disclosed “the composition had no flow or rhythm, and there was no obvious relationship created between the enlarged cross-section and the still life, and the 1:1 rendering of the entire finger lime and the longitudinal sections. Drawing under various magnifying glasses threw me off at one point, and I had to correct and change the perspective on the fruit that was lying on the table.” Using a dissecting microscope, Deb is determined to solve the issue of painting miniature plants to scale in conjunction with their enlargements. She plans to add a finger lime to her garden and continue to study and paint it in a series.