In a year of shut-downs and isolation, of quarantines and social distancing, what I witnessed was a year of generosity. It was a year where art and botany merged in the most extraordinary and magical ways. Public gardens, private retreats, highway medians, and commercial fast food drive-throughs alike provided unique harvesting opportunities in 2020.

 Every herbarium specimen has a rich story—stories full of exploration and adventure, of connections and culture. While traveling down I-95 South in early pre-pandemic March, I was besotted by the beauty of wildflowers thriving in the medians and public rest areas. Sometimes nature’s most ordinary plants, growing in plain sight at a Chick-fil-A drive-through line, prove to be the most fascinating specimens to press—their sheer determination to survive and thrive in the most challenging conditions is miraculous. When many public gardens closed in the spring due to Covid-19, horticulturists at Longwood Gardens, Ladew Topiary Gardens, and Brookgreen Gardens graciously welcomed me into their gates to harvest from their bountiful gardens.

 The collection amassed for this exhibit reflects an incredible generosity of spirit. It reflects the extraordinary kindness of humankind in an all too imperfect moment in time. It epitomizes how creativity can be fostered by cultivating relationships and how art and nature can enrich us as individuals and as a community. Nature is healing, it is restorative. In the middle of a pandemic—and in spite of it—nature’s bounty is remarkable.

Vibrant blooms and foliage collected from the nooks and crannies of the Southern landscape are what define Blackwell Botanicals. Their meticulous preservation and artistic presentation are what elevate these found treasures into sophisticated, unique and highly stylized works of art.

Harvesting from the swamps of South Carolina, the gardens of Virginia’s countryside, the waters of the Atlantic Ocean, and the mountains of the Shenandoah Valley, artist and plantswoman Anne Blackwell Thompson preserves foliage and flowers using centuries-old traditions and turns her bounty into beautiful, artistic compositions. Her work is a culmination of her years of study, her significant training in studio art and art history and her love of the natural world. Her skills were further honed while studying as an apprentice to world-renowned botanical artist Stuart Thornton in Turin, Italy.