Boston Flora

Tag: Madge Evers

  • Saturday, September 10, 10:00 am – 1:00 pm – Beginning Botanical Cyanotype

    Cyanotypes are a compelling and simple way to capture botanical forms and create compelling pieces of art. Learn about the history of the cyanotype process and the work of botanist Anna Atkins, who created the first photographic book Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions in 1853. Led by Madge Evers, students will observe the mixing of the light-sensitive emulsion used to create cyanotype and its application to paper. Students will create their own cyanotype prints to bring home. Pressed plants will be provided, but participants may also bring their own.

    Madge Evers lives in western Massachusetts where her art often begins in the garden. She began making mushroom spore print art in 2015, and since 2016, her work has been shown throughout the Northeast, including at the International Print Center, the Vermont Center for Photography and the Fitchburg Art Museum. She is a 2021 finalist for a Mass Cultural Council fellowship in photography. Madge forages for fungi and plants in fields, on roadsides and in the woods. She recently stepped away from teaching high school after 25 years, so when not composing spore prints or cyanotypes, Madge usually can be found somewhere in the garden.

    This workshop will take place at Berkshire Botanical Garden in Stockbridge on September 10 from 10 – 1. $35 for BBG members, $45 for nonmembers. Register at https://www.berkshirebotanical.org/events/beginning-botanical-cyanotype

  • Through Sunday, February 6 – Hidden Worlds: A New Herbarium, Online

    For many artists who are invited to exhibit work at the Arnold Arboretum, the collections and landscape become a focus and rich cornucopia of form and even fancy. For some, like Madge Evers, it is much more. The Arboretum becomes a laboratory, even a studio, a repository brimming with the media she incorporates into her awe-inspiring prints—the fungi and their subsequent spores.

    Working not only with exhibitions, but with the Arboretum’s curation department, Evers submitted a proposal in March 2020 to begin collecting. March 2020 being the beginning of COVID-19 restrictions, our curatorial assistant, Kathryn Richardson, was being very selective about issuing collecting permits. Evers, however, was given the go ahead for her well conceived proposal. Richardson herself has a special interest in fungi, which she wrote about in her 2009 Arnoldia article “A Closer Look at Fungi”.

    Over the course of the next year, Evers was able to visit the Arboretum, collecting an assortment of mushrooms and adding their countless spores to her art. Along with the mushrooms, she collected other Arboretum plant materials. The resulting exhibition is lush with otherworldly light and shape. There is almost the sense of a kaleidoscope opening up with limited hues, but unlimited iterations of the nuanced disbursement of those spores upon a field of leaves and flowers.

    She has indeed planted her own stories in a rarefied environment where the almost hidden become the abiding mystery, delight, and revelation of this new herbarium. To view the virtual exhibition, available through February 6, visit https://arboretum.harvard.edu/art_shows/hidden-worlds-a-new-herbarium/

    For a detailed list of the plants incorporated into the prints, visit here: Hidden World Spore Prints.

    All artworks are mushroom spores on paper. Evers is an educator, gardener, and visual artist. She uses foraged mushrooms and plants to make works on paper that focus on regeneration. Her work has been shown in New England and New York. In June of 2020, she began to work full-time as an artist after teaching for 25 years in Rhode Island and Massachusetts public schools. She now conducts art-making workshops for people of all ages.

    All rights of the images reside with the artist. For more information on making a copy, or reusing an image, please send your request to arbweb@arnarb.harvard.edu. For information on the work itself, or to inquire about purchasing art, please also send your request to arbweb@arnarb@harvard.edu. We will put you in touch with the artist.

    Kousa Dogwood, 20″ x 28″ copyright 2020 Madge Evers