"Botanical Art Worldwide" Exhibition

A wonderful exhibition launch of New Zealand’s participation in Botanical Art Worldwide. The team lead by President Leslie Alexander did an incredible job to mount a fabulous exhibition and my thanks to the whole team. Thank you also for inviting me to speak on behalf of the artists. 

I chose Crocus sativus to enter as it intrigued me why it is the most expensive spice in the world . The three orange stamens from each plant are handpicked from an average of 150,000 flowers for a dried kilo of the spice . Grown since the bronze age and believed to be native to the Mediterranean area, Asia Minor, and Iran, the saffron crocus has long been cultivated in Iran and Kashmir and is supposed to have been introduced into Cathay (China) by the Mongol invasion.

It is mentioned in a Chinese materia medica (the Bencao gangmu, 1552–78). Used as a spice to flavour and dye food in many cultures. Grown in the 1970s or earlier in New Zealand by a number of small growers. Corms are available for sale for anyone to grow the plant. My corms came from Kiwi Saffron in Te Anau and I grew the plants on to have living material to work from. They in themselves are a beautiful structure to paint and I was particularly struck by the delicate beauty of the petals and the stunning clean colour, so typical of saffron.

The main body of colour of the beautiful mauve of the Saffron petals was created from mixing Old Holland’s Scheveningen Rose Deep and Winsor and Newton’s Smalt Dumont’s blue.