Story behind the art of Kathy Schermer-Gramm

28th Annual International

American Society of Botanical Artists and Marin Art & Garden Center

Pine-Oak Rust Gall on Virginia Pine

Cronartium quercuum on Pinus virginiana

My dog Heidi and I walk daily through nearby woodland that was recently timbered, a common site here in rural North Carolina. Each year that passes brings new transitions and discoveries. The quick growing pines and native cherry trees fill most of the forest until that time when the more substantial oaks and hickories will again dominate. It's a long wait. In the meantime, the young sacrificial pines thin out as lack of sunlight and disease takes its toll. One by one the weedy Virginia pines here are attacked by the eastern rust gall fungus (also known as pine-oak rust or oak-pine rust). A dual host fungus, requiring both the pine and the oak to complete its life cycle, it forms bright orange brain-like spores on the surface of galls on pine branches that float off to infect nearby oaks in the spring. Then, those recently infected oak leaves release their own spores, which in turn are blown back over to the pines. This cycle repeats over several years, weakening the young pines and it may even eventually kill them. 

This painting is a study of the older galls after the tree has been infected and has succumbed. Over time, the galls harden, peel, and split as the woody stems dry out and become brittle. As I was creating a 'postmortem' series of pieces on trees that had died nearby, the galls seemed appropriate. In looking at the painting, it is devoid of the usual botanical depiction of a plant but is instead a documentation of the effects caused by negative environmental changes. The viewer sees two dried galls on a withered stem   broken from the tree; one is shedding its dried outer coating while the other is withering and starting to split. The wide array of textures created challenges for me in their depiction as well as offering the viewer a desire for the tactile experience of touching the subject or pulling off the loose parts. Alas, it is but an illusion at best. 

The galls are painted on hand-tinted paper. I will often tint and manipulate the background with earth toned watercolor pigments to mimic the look of older vellum or manuscripts. My inspiration when painting usually comes from recalling the overall appearance of Albrecht Dürer’s watercolor studies. The clarity of his subjects painted in harmonious subtle colors juxtaposed with selective brilliant colors melt into the glow of the warm aged backgrounds.

I tend to paint with a very dry brush. I rarely match colors exactly on my palette but tend to adjust them as I paint, slipping in bright reds and violets beneath darker regions and then neutralizing them with a complementary color to create more depth. Edges are accented with bright reds, oranges, or cool blues; their overall appearance may disappear altogether or create thin halos to accent the edges with shimmers of color. 

While the premature loss of the prolific and often unloved tree species is sad, their demise means that the hardwood forest is making its way back to its full beauty. The physical force of the disease as it deforms the twigs reflects its violent destructive nature as it progresses. Yet, the galls remain as a witness to that violence that occurs in the rebirth of a forest struggling to survive.

Anglepod Milkvine

Gonolobus suberosus

Years ago, this climbing member of the milkweed family showed up on our property. Whether it was a find brought home from the North Carolina Botanical Garden native plant sale or one that the birds gifted to our garden I will never know. This somewhat sprawling monarch butterfly larval host vine covers an ancient knotty chestnut rail fence alongside other pollinator plants. The vine forms a lush mound whose leaves are the artist's perfect choice when looking for ones with sculptural 'pillowing' surfaces. A bit tropical in appearance, the slender vines twist and writhe upward like a nest of snakes. On further inspection there is a delightful surprise as small, succulent, blackened, starfish-like flowers peek through intermittently. Later, the seed pods will arrive with their delicate pappus seeds as an extra added attraction. I just had to have a go at drawing it. Little did I know it would take me two seasons to put it all together while waiting for a lonely pod to appear.

The plant itself is difficult to work with as the milky sap causes the leaves to wilt almost instantly. Cauterizing the cut stems helped to slow down the wilt, but still I had to use many substitute leaves over the course of the project. To prevent having to deal with seeds floating off into the studio once the pod split open, I placed the pod in a clear acrylic cube. I learned this from experience while working with thistle seeds which floated freely here and there in the studio, evading capture for years.

My thought was to create a drawing based on the seasonal transitions and to capture the flowing movements of the vine and its graceful leaves swirling around itself. I clipped off excess leaves to simplify the composition and expose the hidden goth flowers and snakelike vines in a time-lapse approach, culminating in the moment the seeds disperse into the breeze. 

The technical challenge here was in the depiction of the milkweed seeds and hairs. After several attempts I chose different methods determined by the background values. When the hairs were over the white of the paper it worked well to erase back into the negative spaces after laying down a light value to soften the look of the hairs, then coming back in with a very sharp-tipped hard pencil to refine them. To draw them over the pod, I filled in the negative spaces between the hairs and reapplied graphite with a sharp pencil where the hairs converged with bits of the black seeds peeking through. Lastly, I lifted out highlights with some Blu-Tack wrapped around a tweezer and followed up with an overall faint value to soften and mute any hairs. The drawing combines multiple pencil strokes ranging from hatching to scribbling, shifting them to match the surface textures and patterns. I then followed by calming overall areas with a blunt-nosed hard pencil tip. 

The joy and challenges that came from this drawing were in finding an unassuming plant and elevating it to one that is glamorous, elegant, and worthy of portrayal. And of course, finding the patience to let a project sit until it is the right time.

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