Native Flowers

Glimpses of beauty in a world full of tragedy

Magestic wonders

When I first moved to California I was really excited about being close to the redwood trees and giant sequoias. As a child I remember reading about them and how ancient and gigantic they were and I decided that I was going to see them.

Not too long after I arrived in California, I became involved with the California Native Plant Society (CNPS), and went on many hikes with them and learned a lot about local ecology. One of the first things I learned was that California was a plant biodiversity hotspot. It is one of the few Mediterranean-like climates in the world, characterized by mild rainy winters, and dry warm summers. Although in some coastal areas like San Francisco, the summers can be foggy and chilly.

Beauty in diversity

This special area is known as the California Floristic Province. It stretches all the way from southern Oregon, covers most of the state of California and goes down into the top of Baja California Norte. There are over 8,000 species of plants with 3,000 of them found only here.

Silver Lupines in the Morning Dew: One of my personal favorite flowers and the host plant for the endangered Mission Blue Butterfly

Wild Coast Iris

Paradise lost

When Europeans arrived the mountains were covered in a bright tapestry of flowers, with oranges, purples, blues, and yellows all interwoven. It is said it was quite a psychedelic site to behold. There are a few areas were you can still see the remnants, especially when a superbloom occurs.

Sadly, along with the grevious harm done to the native people, the plant communities have also suffered. Many being choked out by invasive species from all around the world. The parallels are impossible to ignore. There is so much to atone for, but justice first starts with acknowledgement.

Restoration work

Hiking around I love learning about the plants and animals around me. I’ve learned a good bit over the years and especially from the CNPS. For a few years I worked with a group restoring the native plants in McLaren Park across the street from my house. It’s nice to walk by and see some trees or bushes I planted many years ago growing tall and filling out or hillsides that no longer have invasive weeds. Doing direct work to help heal the environment is very enlivening for the soul.

Suncups

Starting at home

I planted a lot of natives in my backyard. This year, I’ve been letting it run wild and need to get in there and tend to it. Happily, most of the grass is now purple needle grass after years of pulling out a lot of non-native fescue. The native plants are starting to hold their own.

Beauty in the darkness

Instead of weeding, I’ve been busy painting native flowers, in an attempt to brighten things up and tap in to my inner joy in a world with a genocide currently underway. Where native people, adults and children, are being rounded up and taken away from their homes and families and sent to detention centers without access to habeas corpus, and companies are profiting from their incarceration. When we are facing ecological collapse in the face of the climate crisis, which could be averted by moving away from fossil fuels and animal agriculture but the people who profit from it are actively blocking progress.

Making organic art provides some relief. I look for and attempt to create beauty, while witnessing and trying to stop the anguish. Breathe in the pain, breathe out the healing.

This series was made using watercolor inks, metallic watercolors, regular watercolors and watercolor pencils.

Native Flowers: Finished artworks

Native Flowers – 2: Works in Progress