STORY BEHIND THE ART OF JEANNETTA VANRAALTE

Weird, Wild, & Wonderful

Second New York Botanical Garden Triennial Exhibition

2014 - 2016

Romanesco cauliflower

Brassica oleracea

From a farm in upstate New York to a farmer’s market in Ditmas Park to an artist’s studio in Marine Park to a gallery at the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx……

I painted a Romanesco Cauliflower head (aka romanesco broccoli) several years ago after my daughter brought me one from a vegetable store. I was fascinated by the beauty of the plant, with its rich, bright and dark green coloring, and by the complex pattern of each large bud being composed of a spiral of smaller buds. I learned later that its self-similarity, with the large buds being composed of similarly-shaped, tiny buds was what mathematicians call “a fractal”. I also learned that the spirals follow a mathematical pattern called a Fibonacci series.

One Sunday in the fall of 2011, I was at the Cortelyou Greenmarket when I saw another romanesco head at the stand run by John Schmid of Muddy River Farm in Goshen, New York. I asked John if he could bring an entire plant - from head to roots – for me to paint. I did not expect the 25 lb. giant he brought the following Sunday! It was so huge that it was very difficult to prop up and pose. From experience, I knew that it was not likely to stay fresh long enough for me to complete a painting, so I did a quick sketch and immediately took photographs that I relied on after the plant began to shrivel up It turned out to be a wonderful subject for this Weird, Wild and Wonderful exhibition! 

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