It’s with great honor and pleasure that I announce my upcoming
exhibit “Arctostaphylos and the Bokeh” at
the Theodore Payne Foundation for Wild
Flowers and Native Plants, January 6 – March
31. Please join the staff of TPF and me for
an opening reception on Saturday, January
24th at 2PM. The Theodore Payne Foundation
has been very proactive across California in
fulfilling their mission statement: “To
promote and restore California landscapes,
and habitats. To propagate and make
available California native plants and
wildflowers, and to educate and acquire
knowledge about California flora and natural
history.” The Foundation is home to an
extensive book and seed library of
California plants, along with sprawling
grounds and a retail nursery.
Bokeh, derived from
the Japanese word boke meaning “fuzzy
or blurred”, is the out of focus area that’s
only seen in photography. The human eye
doesn’t allow for this type of vision, even
artists aren’t capable of painting a canvas
with true bokeh, but the camera allows for
an unseen reality that normally would be
missed. With specific lenses and apertures,
a photographer creates the bokeh with an
extremely shallow depth of focus, forcing
objects in front or behind this finite
“focus plane” to become soft or surreal, and
accentuating that which is focused.
Using “bokeh” to photograph Arctostaphylos (Manzanita) specimens
in flower or with fruit, I’ve created
botanical studies of California’s flora on a
more intimate scale than my landscape
vistas. The individual flowers are tiny to
the human eye, but with a macro lens and
large aperture, they become objects of art,
glowing like white lanterns, or floating
orbs in space. A few other specimens will be
on view including fascinating yellow stalks
and ruby petals of desert candles,
monochrome prints of the Dudleya rosette
radiating light from its unique white chalk
coating, and some other surprises.
The “Arctostaphylos and the Bokeh” art prints are signed open
editions, and available in three sizes,
there will be various price points for all
art/plant enthusiasts. This exhibit is an
exclusive Theodore Payne Foundation event
only and these prints will only be available
for a limited time.
