ART+LIFE Botanical Artist and Illustrator Lara Call Gastinger
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Lara Call Gastinger is an artist and botanical illustrator from Charlottesville, Virginia. Currently, she is the chief illustrator for the Flora of Virginia Project. The subjects of her art come from the natural world and her art reveals detailed evidence of change, decay, and processes that occur in nature. She finds great inspiration in a carrot that has gone to flower, a broken seed pod, twisted roots or insect damage to a leaf. She strives to make a plant portrait in such a way that it reveals its character and uniqueness. Her focus is on the small details in nature, down to the small venations in leaves which hopefully inspires others to look a bit deeper and pause a bit longer. You can follow her work on Instagram, Etsy and Facebook. Laracallgastinger.com
BEGIN AT THE BEGINNING... Even as a child, I would look at tiny things on the ground and gravitated towards nature, specifically plants. While a teenager, I was taught how to draw plants and keep a field sketchbook. I have had many impressionable mentors ranging from naturalists to botanists that have inspired me. Throughout my college years, I studied Biology and was on the search for a way to connect both art and science. I also remember a clear trip up Mount Washington in New Hampshire and seeing the endangered Robbin’s Cinquefoil (Potentilla robbinsiana). It was so tiny and delicate yet so spectacular on the rough terrain of Mt. Washington. Since then, I have always been interested in finding, identifying and drawing plants. I have found inspiration in so many things by just walking through the woods and looking closely. A GOOD STORY... My family enjoys hiking and whenever we are hiking, I am always amazed at the range of colors, textures, and types of plants that we come across during that day. On one of these trips, I started to collect some plants that embodied that day – and referred to it as a “slice” of that day/time. From this one sample painting, I generated an entire collection of 10 pieces that were called “Ten Walks in Virginia” that ended up receiving a gold medal a the Royal Horticultural Society show in London To this day, I still collect and make memorable compositions of a hike or day out. I think that inspiration can be found anywhere in nature, even in one’s backyard. The quote by E.O. Wilson (a famous
biologist who studied ants) always comes to mind ''The naturalist’s journey has only begun and for all intents and purposes will go on forever....it is possible to spend a lifetime in a magellanic voyage around the trunk of a tree.� HOW DOES YOUR WORK RELATE TO YOUR LIFESTYLE? My life is really connected to nature and thus, my art. In our backyard we have a native
plant garden that has numerous plant specimens that I have personally collected (from the Flora project) and are present in so many of my paintings. It is like they are part of my family. My front yard has my vegetable garden that includes many specimens that I have featured including beets and kale. Seeing the complexity and perfection in nature is evidence that something greater than us exists. My artwork magnifies the stunning beauty inherent
in nature by creating a portrait of what I find. I also capture the exquisiteness of decay in nature. There is loveliness in a curled dried leaf, a crinkled petal, or a broken seedpod. This can remind us of our own mortality and of the continuous cycle of life. Physically, painting a specimen becomes a meditative practice that entirely focuses me on the moment and becomes a practice in mindfulness. I can lose myself in the painting and time can pass so fast!
''There is loveliness in a curled dried leaf, a crinkled petal, or a broken seedpod. This can remind us of our own mortality and of the continuous cycle of life.''
TRULY IMPRESSED, FLORA OF VIRGINIA, A 1,500 PAGE SEVEN POUND BOOK THAT WAS RECENTLY PUBLISHED! HOW DID YOU EVEN BEING TO DIVE INTO THIS PROJECT? At the beginning, I was charged with collecting any plants that I found in the wild, identifying and then drawing them. I drew one plant at a time and really got to “know” each one. After I had kids, I was delivered plants by botanists since I was unable to do the fieldwork. The plants were shipped overnight or placed into a cooler on
my porch. I was able to store the specimens in plastic bags in the fridge until I could get a chance to draw them – usually during nap times! Before I knew it, I had drawn almost 1300 plants over ten years. I would draw a sketch, scan and email it to the botanists, receive comments, and then ink it in. A drawing would take from 3-6 hours each. DO YOU HAVE ANY OTHER FASCINATING PROJECTS YOU HAVE COMPLETED? A project that I have worked
on that most people find most fascinating is one that I did for a client where I documented their property for an entire year. I had a sketchbook that I filled out each week for 52 weeks. It was a great practice for drawing on the spot and documenting how one place changes over an entire year. Another surprise to some is that I do not use white paint in my paintings. If there is something that appears white, the paper is exposed to show brightness and paint around it.
YOU HAVE TWO BOYS WHO LOVE NATURE AND ART. ARE THEY DRAWN TO A CERTAIN MEDIUM? My youngest gravitates to art and is enamored by all things rainbow and colorful. He likes to sit at my big desk and use my worn brushes to paint with me. They both like to go on nature adventures with me and like to collect specimens for me to draw. We keep a nature table that is constantly filled with our collections. I keep a field sketchbook and so do they. I love and treasure the moments when we go camping and we all draw in our books together. At home, we have worked on some collaborative family projects such as the huge painting/ collage made out of cut and folded toilet paper tubes. ANY UPCOMING PLANS FOR YOUR WORK? I would like to develop my seasonal book project mentioned earlier so that it could be published. It would be an excellent record of our changing flora over the year in the Piedmont. In the meantime, I am continuing to paint as much as I can now that I have full days when the boys are at school.
Do Tell... Breakfast or Dinner? Breakfast!
Daydreaming... A cup of Japanese green tea and dark chocolate.
Bucket list... Travel to Iceland, Norway, hike part of the AT, go to an ice hotel and a cranberry bog. What should change... How little exposure to nature kids get today and how much screen time there is. What should stay the same... Childlike wonder, curiosity, and creativity that we have as kids. 100 things I like to draw: dried leaves, mushrooms, acorns, hickories, dried berries, bumpy leaves, smilax roots, rotten apples, lichens, mosses, seed pods, curling leaves, milkweed pods, holes in leaves, tiny shells, kale, rosehips, anemone flowers, opening buds, radish leaves, artichokes, insects making holes, buckeyes, witch hazel flowers, fuzzy stems, faded beech leaves, beech nuts, mountain laurel, beets, leek flower heads, shiny onions, sprouting garlic, fall hickory leaves, twisting vines, delicate ferns, croziers in the spring, tendrils, star magnolia petals, Queen Anne’s Lace seed head, winter grasses, yucca pods, falling and curling petals, shiny leaves, broken capsules, partridge berry, emerging may apples, spring ephemerals, decaying leaves, morels, peppers, ripe persimmons, green round walnuts, yellowed walnut leaves, red sumac berries, brown sycamore leaves, hydrangea flowers, poppy capsules, anthers with pollen, butterfly wings, garlic heads, mushroom gills, spiky chestnuts, wild grapes, sycamore seed balls, undersides of leaves, skeletonized leaves, peeling bark, white flower petals, spines, acorns caps, clematis seeds, dried sunflowers, tulip poplar cones, fuzzy asters, radish leaves, hemlock cones, hazelnuts, colorful rocks, shelf mushrooms, blackberries, yellow fall leaves, black locust pods, shiny beetles, winterberries, split open walnuts, radishes, stigmas, dragonfly wings, pea pods, seedbox, tomatillo husks, cross sections of flowers, glandular hairs, windborne achenes, milkweed flowers, maple leaves with red, yellow and green, maple seeds, twigs with dots, anything prickly, morning glory seed heads.
Elm Leaf
Hazelnut
Bottlebrush Buckeye
Hickory
Tulip Poplar Leaf
Chestnut
Buckeye Poppy Beech Nut
Jimson We
Walnut Polypore
Sycamore Sweetgum
Sumac
Buckeye
Black Locust Twig
Deodar Cedar
Ostrich Fern
Wisteria
e
eed
Kentucky Coffee Tree
Wild Grape
''The moment one gives attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself.'' – Henry Miller