“I marvel at the unfurling of a petal, the opening of a blossom pod, a seed head flinging its bounty. The transformation has always sparked wonder in me, since being sent as a child of a farm to the garden to pick whatever was ready for supper that night. I find creative inspiration and joy in the flow of being from seed to blossom to artwork.

Layers of translucent colored pencils, chalk pastels on a gritty surface, watercolor in soft washes, pressed petals playing together:

All inspire me. 

Flowers, landscapes of color and texture, petals, bouquets, abstractions of all these things:

All are before me."

 -Susan McChesney

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Having drawn all my life, my creative practice shifted, after illness left me with a shaky hand, to include pressing plant material from Western North Carolina and collaging it into landscapes.

So many of the same elements come into play: color, shape, texture, value, perspective… but transformed by the fragility and variety presented by nature.

Surrounded by flowers, I am grateful for their bounty.

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I am also a writer, currently working on a historical fiction novel tracing a French family of Acadian background who fled the forced expulsion by the British from Nova Scotia to Quebec in the mid 1700's. Stay tuned.