Story behind the art of Jean Emmons

 

29th Annual International

American Society of Botanical Artists and the Society of Illustrators

 

Double Pink Poppy

Papaver somniferum

 

Beloved of bees and gardeners, poppies have appealed to artists from Egyptian tomb painters to Monet, Van Gogh, Klimt and O’Keefe.

Poppies do well here in the Pacific Northwest, blooming during a special time, as our cold, wet “June gloom” ends and our true summer begins.

I’ve been growing Papaver somniferum along with other poppy species in my garden for over twenty years. The flowers are fleeting, yet the seeds, if stored carefully, can be viable for a decade. The trick is to sow them in the fall and never, ever cover them with soil. Other poppy seeds just park themselves in the soil and come up when uncovered during weeding.

I never know what the flower color will be. Their natural inclination is to revert to a single, neutral lavender with purple blotches. Some varieties I grew 15 years ago reappear, along with some surprising new colors resulting from cross breeding in the garden. Colors can be anything from white to pink, salmon, coral, brick red, various lavenders and true black.  Petals may be shiny or matte, edges fringed or entire. Flowers can be single, semi-double, or fully double.

Even if they never flower, the foliage is such a beautiful celadon, it’s enough in itself.

These plants solve lots of garden problems for me. They can be counted on to fill the difficult spaces where other plants are dwindling. They are easy to thin or remove if they show up in the wrong spot. They withstand drought, even tolerating a compacted gravel driveway. Deer and my neighbor’s giant peacock don’t eat them.

Honeybees and solitary bees love the pollen, particularly on the single black flowers. It must be delicious, as I’ve watched bees strip it within minutes of the flowers opening, five or six bees on one flower. Other colors are a second choice for the bees, though also quickly devoured.

With its complication of petals, my favorite is the mysterious ‘Black Paeony.’  I also like ‘Drama Queen’ and ‘Danish Flag’, with their melodramatic pinking-sheared edges. I want to paint ‘Swansdown’, ‘Blue Moon’, and, like the poppy in this painting, all the double and semi-double smokey pinks and the rare enigmatic gray. I grew ‘Sissinghurst White’ with reluctance. It is simple in its single form and “just white.” Yet, there is no “just white” in nature and there is no simple form either. In early morning light, I see a carnival of color in its shadows. I follow the light back and forth over its folds and wrinkles – not so simple.

I am grateful to work from a live subject. There are more possibilities in terms of where to go with a painting. I see more details, more changing light. Poppy blooming time is so brief it requires a true focused presence from the artist. I cauterize the stems, but still there is not much time. The paintings take so long, I have to rely on photographs in order to finish. The photos are more of a memory aid than information or inspiration. They never feed my soul the way a live subject can.

 

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Read more about this artist's work: BAWW 2025