STORY BEHIND THE ART OF KIYOMI YAMAMOTO

23rd Annual International

American Society of Botanical Artists at Wave Hill

Camellia

Camellia crapnelliana

I am living as a botanical artist in Toyama City, located 400km north-west of Tokyo in Japan. This region is richly endowed with nature surrounded by the high Northern Alps and the deep Toyama Bay.

In this area, I have met many teachers with a detailed knowledge of plants, and I have been drawing botanical art while exchanging observations and thoughts with my friends.

I am currently a member of the Botanical Art Group in the Botanical Garden of Toyama (BGT), which is known for having a large area and many researchers. Dr. Masashi Nakata, the Director of BGT, has a deep knowledge of botanical art and is loved by our colleagues.

In the Original-Species Camellia Garden (OSCG) in the Inokuchi Tsubakikan museum in Nanto City of Toyama Prefecture, there are many trees of original species camellias collected by late Shuhou Kirino. He was a leading expert in camellia research in Japan, and the OSCG has become one of the best original species camellia gardens in the world. I am allowed to draw a series of precious original camellias through the kindness of the museum.

The camellia drawn this time is also one of the original species, and it is rare and valuable because only one known crapnelliana tree was discovered and described, in 1903, on Mount Parker on Hong Kong Island. First of all, I was fascinated by the size of the fruit. It was also fun to draw while imagining that the fruit was so big because it protected the seeds from dryness or insects couldn't eat them, and so on. I kept the number of branches and leaves to a minimum so that the sizes of a fruit and flowers could be compared with each other more distinctly.

In the future, I would like to make artistic works while challenging myself to create works using a much more scientific viewpoint.

I would like to express my gratitude to Mr. Takehiko Ohnishi, Director of the Inokuchi Tsubakikan museum, for his cooperation and his support for my work.

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