Story behind the art of Jane Hancock

28th Annual International

American Society of Botanical Artists and Marin Art & Garden Center

Sidewalk Specimens

Asclepias syriaca, Trametes versicolor, Gymnocladus dioicus, Trametes betulina, Acer saccharinum, Ulmus americana

Sidewalk Specimens is about my corner of my city, Minneapolis. This is a neighborhood of single-family homes, developed during the post-World War II housing construction boom. It is full of mature trees, and gardens are plentiful in the modestly sized yards. The area is laid out in a typical street grid, except for one undeveloped area: Grass Lake—really a 27-acre wetland—which edges up against a highway sound barrier. The irregular, curving streets bordering the lake are a magnet for walkers and bikers, and a place where you might catch a glimpse of wood ducks, egrets, and great blue herons among the mallards and Canada geese. Recently it’s even been visited by a pair of trumpeter swans. It’s a small haven of nature in an urban area.

The dried specimens in my watercolor painting came from my walks between my house and Grass Lake. I collected my subjects during the brief time between late winter and early spring 2024. The snow had melted, revealing plant life remaining from the previous summer. Among the many items I collected, I chose to paint those that presented the most interesting contrasts of color, form, and texture.

My walks began in my backyard, dominated by a huge American elm that had dropped dark, rough shards of bark with sparks of emerald-green. The sidewalks between there and the lake took me past a house with two Kentucky coffee trees, which left their smooth, leathery maroon pods. The little gilled polypore that had grown around the petiole of a silver maple leaf came from a stump where the city had removed a tree. Some neighbors cultivate common milkweed along their sidewalks in hopes of giving monarchs a boost. Those dried and empty pods add interest to the streetscape during the winter, and they revealed to me a shiny hollow interior that contrasted with my other dark and matte materials. And a friend gave me the turkey tail fungus.

The diversity of the specimens made this project an absorbing challenge. Together, they carry a unified memory of a particular city neighborhood, at a moment just before winter gave way to spring.

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Read more about this artist's work: 27th Annual