STORY BEHIND THE ART OF MARGARET FARR

17th Annual International

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

Spotted Wintergreen

Chimaphila maculata

I spent the first twenty years of my botanical painting life exploring the recondite mysteries of roses and pansies, tulips, azaleas, lilies, camellias: the world of Home Depot was my oyster. I foresaw a lifetime of fulfillment in pursuing deep inquiry into the domesticated suburban garden. The posting of any possible art venue which featured the word "native", I passed over with a disinterested glance. However, several years ago, the vicissitudes of life wafted me thirty miles out west of the snug comfort of the Washington, D.C. beltway, where suddenly I had to shove a deer aside to get into my car in the driveway. It took a couple of years in my new world of dogged persistence in the buying and planting of azaleas (deer fodder) to finally admit defeat. I started to glance around my new environs with less critical eyes. Mountain laurels and wild American hollies lined the drive, planted and nurtured by nature with no help from me. Expanses of Quaker Ladies - never saw those before - right out the front door like clockwork every May. It took me two years to notice them, as I slavishly attempted fortresses around yet another azalea patch.

In the adjacent woods where I went to pilfer rocks to bolster an impossible slope, a tiny white miracle was found scattered at rare intervals in the brown leaf mold. Teeny, perfect little white globes where nothing else of note appeared but for some moss and staghorn ferns. What delight -it was Chimaphila maculata - though I prefer its Cree Indian name, "Pipsissewa", meaning "it breaks it". The Crees thought ingesting it helped out with kidney stones (would that it were so.) As summer progressed, the five petals of the little bells flipped open and back to reveal the busiest of interiors: 10 tiny orange anthers perfectly arrayed in a circle around a bright green pistil. So sweet and perfect - and not to be found at Home Depot! It comes up where it wants to (although I'm experimenting in that regard). Of course I have gone back again and again to follow its progress (just off a round of Cephalexin for the bee sting, and due a blood test for the tick bite). Hence, the seasonal progression seen in the painting. In early June, tiny green leaves are scattered in colonies throughout the dense sunless woods. They seem to favor nestling near large roots of trees or semi buried rock. It is a cause for celebration to watch white globes of one or two - or rare bliss - three to a stalk emerge, and over the course of some weeks, open. Only one or two plants in my patch will flower in a given year, but the fairy ring of surrounding leaves always gives hope for the future. And I must credit this little plant with a new world view which is heavily invested in the discovery and depiction of the native plants of my beloved Virginia.

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