STORY BEHIND THE ART OF JANENE WALKKY

Botanical Art Worldwide: America's Flora

Native Violets and Endangered Silverspot Butterfly

Viola glabella, Viola adunca, Speyeria zerene hippolyta

In a way, a trail of ants led me to the violets featured in this painting. I was researching ant propagated native plants, which is a fascinating topic in itself, and stumbled upon the hooked spur violet or Viola adunca, which is not only ant propagated but host to the caterpillar of the Oregon silverspot butterfly, Speyeria zerene hippolyta. This endangered butterfly lays its eggs near Viola adunca and eventually the hatched caterpillar makes its way to its only food source, hooked spur violet leaves!

I look for stories to tell in my paintings, and this seemed a worthy one, the reliance of a beautiful butterfly on a small violet for its survival. These silverspot caterpillars have lost much of their food source because of the increasing scarcity of the salt marshes and meadows where Viola adunca used to thrive. Fortunately two regional zoos are not only propagating and releasing silverspot butterflies along the coast, but planting thousands of hooked spur violets in an effort to restore the Oregon silverspot butterfly population in the wild.

The hooked spur violet forms a low, almost squat clump so I included the yellow-flowered stream violet, Viola glabella, in the painting to add height and a sense of movement. I liked the interplay of colors and different plant forms within the same family. The silverspot pollinates both violets so the stream violet is part of the story too. 

The challenge of painting the caterpillar was making visual sense of all of the little hairs, or setae, and the orange spiracles that protrude from its side. I didn’t want it to become a blur of little black lines and orange dots. I decided to use shades of black to differentiate the near hairs from the farther ones. The near ones are painted a warm brownish black and the far ones bluish black because the blue tones tend to visually recede. Since the caterpillar is quite small, I used a 5x magnifying glass and a very small brush to get the fine detail and keep the image crisp. The silverspot caterpillar goes through several stages, and the one I depicted is a latter one. I’ve even learned something about butterfly life-cycle and caterpillar anatomy in this process!

So that’s how a trail of ants led me to the story of the mutual reliance of a small violet and a beautiful butterfly for survival. 

Winter Gale--Oregon Maple

Acer macrophyllum

Although I live in an urban neighborhood, I often walk through a green space, just blocks away, that feature many native trees and shrubs. One of the predominant trees is the Oregon maple (Acer macrophyllum) or bigleaf maple as some call it. Observing the swelling burgundy buds in spring, the bright chartreuse emerging leaves, the hairy brown samaras and finally the falling yellowed leaves in autumn, year after year, makes the tree seem like a familiar neighbor that is always up to something interesting.

On one of my walks after a winter windstorm I noticed a dried maple leaf on the ground that had a look of motion about it, like it was waiting for a breeze to take off and go whirling through the air once again. I took it home and hung it in my studio, thinking about how to make the white background that is traditional in botanical art have the substance of the wind in order to tell the leaf’s story.  

I decided that twirling seeds and other bits flung around the background would imply the look of motion that I wanted. Since the leaf had already fallen and dried, the samaras should look weathered, as if they too had lain on the ground until the storm made them rise up together. I hoped the viewer would get drawn into the story by asking how the bit of dried grass had become attached to the seed. 

After digging around under the carpet of leaves along the path I found many samaras and their stems in various stages of decay. In my studio, I propped them up on a foam board with pins and putty, trying to replicate how they might look twirling around. One of my biggest challenges was to push the perspective on the samaras far enough to give them motion but at the same time keep them identifiable. After my fist attempt, I asked for feedback from some fellow artists and they confirmed my hunch that I should push it even further.

Since the painting on is Kelmscott vellum, it has the advantage of allowing small changes in a painting by carefully scraping then sanding the surface with very fine sandpaper. Thus I was able to adjust the angle of one of the samaras. Kelmscott vellum is made of calfskin which is hand prepared in England in the same way as manuscript parchment was made in the Middle Ages. This vellum has a luminous quality that is a delight to work on and makes colors glow.

My hope is that this painting tells the tale of a leaf rising to dance again on a harsh winter day.

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