STORY BEHIND THE ART OF ANNE MANTINI

Abundant Future: Cultivating Diversity in Garden, Farm, and Field

Rosa Bianca, Immigrant Eggplant

Solanum melongena 'Rosa Bianca'

I have lived among heirloom fruits and vegetables all of my life. ‘Red Pear’ tomato plants lined the front walkway of the house where I was born. ‘Lima del Papa’ beans and Tuscan cantaloupes intermingled with the wildflowers pointed to creek behind my childhood backyard. ‘Bifara’ figs and ‘Muscato’ grapes covered the patio, their seeds having been brought home after a trip to Italy during my adolescence. Many years later, the sweet ‘Matucana’ peas and ‘MacIntosh’ apples continued to thrive in my parent’s suburban backyard many years later.

Last year, when I discovered the ASBA call for entries to the 4th NYBG Triennial exhibition: Abundant Future, I immediately called my father. After all, for generations, my family have devoted themselves to cultivating diversity, whether on a far-away farm or in a local backyard garden. Similarly, botanical artists cultivate respect and dedication for plants by representing the growth patterns, biological mechanisms and the intricate structure of plants with such detail and depth through art, that it becomes impossible to deny the miracle of each plant and its essential contribution to our lives.

On the phone, my father listed off the many plant candidates already emerging in his garden from seeds of which he had catalogued himself. But as a trained scientist, I had to do my own research. After weeks of learning all I could about heirloom plants from scientific articles and seed experts, I chose the ‘Rosa Bianca’ eggplant, an heirloom species of the nightshade family Solanaceae. It is an immigrant, just like my father. Having originated in India several thousand years ago, transplanted to Egypt, then Italy, and finally crossing the Atlantic Ocean over a hundred years ago, it was carried to North American by Italian immigrants.

Soon after, my ‘Rosa Bianca’ seeds arrived. My father prepared the seedling pots in his greenhouse. I educated him on their history; he educated me on the biology of the plant. And with that we embarked on our first project together since I was in high school. Within a few weeks, the stems started to sprout but struggled to stay upright. The leaves were fragile and disintegrated easily, frequently attacked by many more insects than normal. I visited often and drew the plant repeatedly at each stage. Every day, my father tended to, and protected each seedling but most did not survive. One day, we stood motionless staring at the few remaining plants and shook our heads. At that point, I gave up on my plan and instead chose to draw a simple lettuce during the wonderful Heirloom Workshop led by Margaret Best. Yet, in class, I continued to rave about the young eggplant and picked up many valuable skills I could have used to represent the eggplant leaves.

Next time I visited my father, four large pots of ‘Rosa Bianca’ lined the foot of the patio. Each pot contained a thick spiny stem two feet in height. Long branching stems stretched everywhere, many holding delicate purple flowers at the top of the plant. Underneath several soft fruits, each cupped and protected by their own tough calyx, hung above huge coarsely lobed leaves that flopped over the pot edges. This was no fragile berry. I was struck by this explosion of nature and its obvious intelligence. The hardiness, the variety of leaves, its intricate capacity to cultivate multiple fruits at different stages of development while also nurturing new flowers, and whose five lobed corollas mirrored the glossy purple spreading across the round fruit below. ‘Rosa Bianca’ had its own plan all along. So much diversity and robustness in one plant, how is it that Rosa Bianca is not cultivated widely today?

Now it was clear. Drawing ‘Rosa Bianca’ with colored pencil was the perfect way to capture the practical texture and many layers of vigorous color while also highlighting the richness and strength of this heirloom. With enthusiasm and persistence, I drew ‘Rosa Bianca’ with the goal of representing the splendor of heirloom vegetables, and the importance of nurturing both the plant and the communities that have contributed to their evolution.

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