STORY BEHIND THE ART OF Faye Van Wert
25th Annual International
American Society of Botanical Artists and Wave Hill
Otter Pond 2, Yellow Pond-Lily; Watershield
Nuphar variegata, Brasenia schreberi
I have many wonderful memories of canoeing along ponds and rivers in New Hampshire and Massachusetts, watching for turtles, herons, and loons and a myriad of water plants that rise up in watery fields of white, yellow, and purple. But gliding through the shallows in the fall, I found an eye-popping rainbow of brilliance floating above and in the water. Decomposition was beginning, and it was in these leaves and flowers that I found my subjects for Otter Pond 1, 2, and 3.
Yellow pond-lily and watershield seem like a happy couple, always cohabiting in quiet backwaters. In fact, for a while I thought they were the same plant! But research revealed two very different plants. While the watershield has tiny, hidden, almost translucent flowers, its leaves turn from green to brilliant colors of yellow, orange, and red, decorated in lacy filigrees of decay. By contrast, the lily’s leaves are arrow-shaped green (not shown in this painting) while the flowers transform into fancy ballerinas with curly tutu petals and outrageously colored stigma caps and ribbed fruit capsules.
The challenge of this painting included arranging the parts in a pleasing design to evoke a watery world in which the elements float and bob. Texture and color definitely starred in my project, too. It was difficult to create sparkling water droplets and light alongside rotting sepals, crumbling leaf edges, and gelatinous underwater plant bits.
The project has been bittersweet for me. Alas, the canoe is gone, and the idyllic trips amongst the lilies are a passing memory, like the transition of fading plants that eventually drift to the pond’s bottom.