Grace Church in New York

Bonnie Recca

During self-isolation and knowing the art shows I generally participate in Were on hold left me more time to try some new Approaches.  The first painting was inspired by Ellen Hoverkamp’s photographs that I saw in the 2018 Garden Conservancy annual report.  I collected pieces from our garden that make up the backbone not the stars and created a still life of Carolina Allspice flowers, ferns, grasses, evergreen branch, berries, rocks and bark. Working with such a dark background was interesting and I continued using it with the red and white peonies. Then I went in the opposite direction and painted a tiny, loose paintings of cornflowers with a very light background and then the tulips almost monochromatic between the subject and the background.  The peaches were more traditional style of my paintings but I love fruit with the leaves still on it. Finding three of them at the farm stand was Irresistible.