Welcome
Explore the Art and the Journey of Pressed Flower Artist Susan McChesney.
After a lifetime of figurative drawing, I began pressing flower petals from a local flower farm in 2017. I found the pressed petals to be vibrant and visually alive.
With inspiration from the WNC mountains around me, I collage them into landscape images, using the petals like strokes of paint. I delight in the originals as well as reproductions of the originals with prints on paper and canvas, and jigsaw puzzles, available in my online shop. Any of my images can be printed by request on various surfaces including paper, canvas and acrylic mount. Contact me directly.
My mission is to spread beauty in the world through the creation of fine art with the preservation of flowers.
Doing jigsaw puzzles is known to reinforce connections between brain cells, improve mental speed, release dopamine, improve critical thinking and more.
Selections of originals, prints, jigsaw puzzles and /or cards are available at:
Asheville Art Museum Shop, Asheville NC
NC Botanical Garden, Asheville NC
Flow Gallery Marshall NC
Mars Landing Gallery in Mars Hill NC .
John C. Campbell Folk School Craft Shop, Brasstown, NC.
On Exhibit: 'River Flow', Asheville Strong, Asheville Art Museum through early May.
Pressed Flower Art WORKSHOPS:
Experience my techniques pressing, unpressing, storing, collaging,
and sealing; create a piece of art to treasure.
All materials, tips, tricks and fun provided.
Workshops COMING UP:
NC Arboretum June 21 ; registration through the Arboretum.
Madison Library, Marshall June 13, registration through the Library.
Mars Landing Gallery;, Mars Hill TBD.
Sign up through Contact box below to receive notice of all the news,
including advance notice of workshop dates..
questions: email susan@mcchesneyart.com
Exhibits & Workshops
PetalPassages.
Pressing Bouquets and creating Fine Art in the Spirit of the Fresh Bouquet; preserving memories of some of the most important occasions in a life.
Entrust your Special Occasion Flowers to me to preserve them and create a collage with the pressed florals that will stir memories for many years to come.
They too are marking Special Passages; Keep them.
The Artist.
“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
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.
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.
The Art of Pressing Flowers
Oshibana, the 16th c. Japanese floral preservation tradition of pressed flower art, grappled then with preserving color in the flower petals, and the challenge continues today.
The contemporary techniques to remove oxygen from the originals, the fading culprit, include lamination and press sealing, both of which I use.
Originals are sealed upon completion and they will hold color, and they will change, over time.
Experience has told me that whites and greens often brown. Dye Flowers hold color well.
They are always Gorgeous.
They tell me what to do.
The Journey.
Education & Work
Diploma, School of Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
M. Ed, Antioch University
20+ years teaching and administrative positions in Department of Education, MFA Boston
40+ years public and private studio instruction with a concentration in Drawing.
Teaching: Pressed Flower Art; 7+ years public and private studio instruction; all ages and abilities, including:
2019- present: Asheville Art Museum,
2023 - present: NC Arboretum, Asheville NC
Gallery 339, Hot Springs NC
Mars Landing Gallery, Mars Hill NC
Private, McChesneyArt
Exhibiting:
2025: 'Asheville Strong', Asheville Art Museum
'Ghosts of Helene', Weizenblatt Gallery,
Mars Hill University, Mars Hill NC
'Art For Autonomy', Asheville NC
Susan lived and worked in mid-coast Maine 2001 – 2014, and now lives, works, exhibits and teaches in Western North Carolina.
See some of her art journey in this gallery.
Originals, prints, puzzles and cards at Flow Gallery Marshall, NC. (14 S. Main St.)
Finalist Craft Category; Our State Magazine Made-in-NC Awards 2021
Originals at John C. Campbell Folk School Craft Shop, Brasstown, NC.
Commissioned Original and Prints 2024
The News-Record & Sentinel's Spring & Summer 2022
Visitors Guide for
Madison County NC -
First Place in Niche publications category, NC Press Association 2023.
Cover image by Susan McChesney