Handbound Book of Winter Buds - The Carroll Studio Gallery

January 16, 1969 – January 12, 1972

30 pages: Watercolors of the winter buds of trees and shrubs, each page a different species. Watercolor landscapes, front and rear end papers. Index. 25 blank pages

Front end pages A Book of Winter Buds 685

Front End Papers

Rear End Pages A Book of Winter Buds 685

Rear End Papers.

We moved to Melvin Village, New Hampshire, on the first of July, 1969. I was to begin teaching high school art in Wolfeboro in September.

[I write about this fourth and last year of my teaching high school art, with thoughts on my teaching and my year-long embattled experiences with an alt-right principal, in my memoir, Self-Portrait With Turtles.]

There was a classic snow-bound New Hampshire winter that year. It began snowing in early November and never stopped. At one point our road – we were the only ones living on it – could not be plowed for three days. Essential groceries were brought to us via snowmobiles.

I wanted to find subjects for watercolors I could do in the free spaces in my teaching schedule. Out on snowshoes one day I began to look closely at winter tree buds – there was little else to be seen but an endless landscape of snow.

I became entranced by the colors and shapes, the structure of winter branches and buds. These fairly minute subjects had yet a quality of monumentality about them.

On a visit to my friend and mentor, former high school art teacher Bill Miller, he told me that one could identify trees by examining their winter buds. This was in some cases easier than trying to key them out by way of their leaves.

I bought some field guides on the subject and began to make identifications, learning the Latin as well as common names of trees and shrubs. I made this hand bound book and began to do watercolors of each species as I identified it.

This project was a deeply satisfying addition to my artist and naturalist endeavors. It initiated one of my major concentrations of over the next fifteen years or so, as I took up a range of botanical studies.

The winter bud series was also extremely formative in preparing me for the considerable body of plant drawings I did for my natural history books. And it certainly put me in good stead for doing all of the “science and art together” during my epoch of eight years of producing art work based on the compartmentalization of decay in trees. [This collection is the subject of a comprehensive page, with a selected gallery of images, in my archive.]

The interconnections of my work as artist, naturalist, and writer are here again underscored.

Over time I expanded to pencil and watercolor studies of branches, rather than simply a twig with its bud. It gives me pause to think of how long that subject kept me engaged, as I went on to do three hand bound books and many individual sheets.

In the 1970’s and early 1980’s I maintained a sustained focus on botanical watercolors, from detailed naturalist renderings to flower paintings in a variety of styles. Many of these displayed the influence of and deep admiration I have for Japanese screen paintings, Chinese albums, and Asian painting in general.

I participated in a number of international botanical art exhibitions. One of these was the 1972/73 exhibition of botanical art and illustration at the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Three of my watercolors of winter branches were selected for the exhibition. The Institute purchased two of these, studies of red maple and blueberry, for their permanent collection.

This placed me in the company of such renowned botanical artists as Redouté and Dürer. I discuss this in the botanical art section of my archive. This posting is yet a work in progress, to be added in time to my archival offerings.

“A Book of Winter Buds” can certainly be viewed as a valuable component of a core archival collection. I give strong consideration to the place it holds in the context of my life’s work, and list it as one of the works in my sketchbook and hand bound books category that could be included in a core acquisition.

At the same time I consider the place it could have in a bibliophiles’ library, or any collection of unique original books. Consequently I am offering this work as an individual acquisition at $10,000.00. I would be happy to provide more, or all images in the book to any parties who would like to consider an acquisition.

Selected representative images: