Botanical Garden of the Piedmont loves to connect people to plants, and this September the Botanical Art Festival extends that connection into the world of fine art, giving you the chance to view and purchase botanical and nature-inspired art from talented artists and illustrators. But what if you’d love to purchase artwork and don’t know how to begin? Here are a few pointers that I hope will help.
Recording the natural world through art is a very old tradition, with botanical illustration tracing its roots to the cataloging of plants for medicinal purposes. Quite a few artists acknowledge this link to the past in their work. Others enjoy placing their subjects within a natural environment or including insects and birds alongside plants and landscapes.
The first rule of thumb is to purchase artwork that you love. Art is very individualistic and personal, so don’t be afraid to buy what speaks to you. This will be a guarantee of your enjoyment of the art for years to come.
Nature-inspired art spans a wide range of media, from oil and acrylic to photography and mixed media. Botanical art in particular is most often accomplished in pencil, colored pencil, ink or watercolor, reflecting the fine detail the subject demands. Larger works are generally more expensive, and art is priced according to the artist’s view of the work, the cost of materials, and the final framing costs.
A piece of art takes many hours to accomplish. This is especially true of botanical illustration, where careful observation of a plant and its parts is essential, and it’s not uncommon for a botanical work to take 50 to 100 hours or more. Remember, too, that the expense includes the artist’s cost of framing.
You should expect to pay more for an original piece of art than for a print, though there are exceptions: prints from well-known artists may cost more than originals from lesser-known ones. Buy what you can afford. Prints are a wonderful way to purchase a copy of an artwork whose original might have been too expensive, and artists often make sets of prints of their best work to share with more people.
Attending an art festival like this one is a very good way to discover what types of art you like, observing different artists’ interpretations side by side to find what you’d enjoy having in your own home. Don’t be afraid to engage the artist in conversation if he or she is on hand, and to ask questions as you learn. Artists are generally happy to talk about their passion in bringing the natural world into focus for the viewer’s enjoyment.
New this year, the festival also features a youth art show, giving young artists the chance to share their own nature-inspired work. It’s a wonderful reminder of why the Garden hosts this festival in the first place: to nurture a love of nature and art together, in every generation, within the Piedmont landscape that inspired it.
Registration and ticket sales for the Botanical Art Festival open August 10. Festival events include the First Fridays Gallery Opening on Friday, September 4, and a ticketed Celebration on Thursday, September 17, both from 5:30–7:30 p.m. at McGuffey Art Center. Learn more at piedmontgarden.org.
About the Author:
Joan Swanberg is a past president of the Botanical Garden of the Piedmont and lives in a 1790 mill house in southern Albemarle County. She has a minor in art from the University of Kentucky as well as her botanical illustration certificate from the Morton Arboretum.
