Tower Hill hosts exhibit that celebrates 'Desert Treasures'

As summer tends toward fall, prickly agave and brilliant claret cup, hardy buckthorn and translucent fortnight lilies are blooming at Tower Hill Botanic Garden.

Wielding her paintbrush like a horticultural wand, artist Carol Amos has transplanted a hothouse of "Desert Treasures" from her Southwestern home to the cathedral-like Limonaia greenhouse in the Boylston botanical garden.

A transplant herself and current resident of Scottsdale, Ariz., and St. Louis, Mo., Amos is showing 23 gorgeous oil paintings in the inaugural exhibition in the spacious Limonaia, which was completed in November 2010.

"As a painter, I hope to capture the beauty of the every day world that people see in their own gardens," she said Monday while installing the show. "All I'm doing is conveying to viewers something I saw that's so beautiful that I want to share it with them."

Subtitled "New Paintings by Scottsdale Artist Carol Amos," the show opened Aug. 23 and runs through Oct. 1.

With its 36-foot-tall arched ceiling and large windows, the Limonaia resembles the interior of Spanish-style chapels found throughout the Southwest.

Viewing Amos' paintings, visitors can easily imagine they're looking out a chapel window and seeing yellow prickly pear or a white winged dove perched on a saguaro fruit.

Tower Hill Executive Director John W. Trexler said showing Amos' paintings in the Limonaia's inaugural exhibit was an inspired choice.

"I think the stateliness of the room complements Carol's beautiful art," he said.

Painting these Southwestern plants, Amos combines a botanist's anatomical knowledge with a home gardener's personal touch.

Rather than trying to illustrate a textbook, she's depicted on her canvases accurate, vividly colored portraits of plants and the critters that nibble their flowers and hide beneath their leaves.

Pausing before a painting of a tomato-red ocotillo, Amos pointed to her rendering of its oval leaves and spiny stalks.

"I like detail. I like all the little pieces like the spines and petals. I don't want them to be perfect, just real," she said.

Visitors will be able to compare Amos' remarkably detailed paintings with the genuine article when Tower Hill hosts the Fifth Annual Cactus and Succulent Show Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 17 and 18, in the Milton Gallery and two classrooms.

Comprising 10 vendors, the cactus and succulent show runs on Saturday from noon to 5 p.m. and on Sunday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Amos will be at Tower Hill Saturday, Sept. 17, to discuss her work prior to the evening reception. All her paintings are for sale.

Through mid-September, visitors will see a pair of very different and exciting exhibits at Tower Hill.

In an exhibit titled "Fear and Wonder," Sean James Harrington is showing throughout the grounds and gardens 24 intriguing sculptures made from recycled materials that reflect his interest in nature and mythology.

Gail Bachorik's fiber and fabric "Art Quilts," which runs through Sept. 4, suggest the lush tropical beauty of her home in Florida. Amos' paintings will move to the Milton Gallery on Sept. 4 when "Art Quilts" ends.

Amos described herself as a contemporary realist who aims to accurately depict her floral subjects while conveying their natural ambience.

Born in Lexington, Ky., she grew up in the Midwest where she began drawing and painting as a child. Largely self-taught, she has studied under Jerry Thomas of St. Louis, Cody DeLong of Arizona, and en plein air artist M. Shawn Cornell.

She said she seeks to bring her plants and flowers alive, an effect she said Thomas called "putting the spark in the eye of the horse."

"I'm not aiming for photographic realism. If my paintings look like a photograph, that's not my intent. I might simplify it a little but not to the point of abstraction," she said. "I'd prefer a viewer to ask: How did this beautiful cactus grow in the midst of this harsh desert?"

Working exclusively with oils for this exhibit, Amos frequently applies her paint in a layered manner that evokes the rough surfaces of her subjects' branches and leaves.

For Amos, the essential step to expressing the vitality of her floral subjects is "really seeing what I'm looking at."

"You have to really look to see what's really there, not what you think is there," she said.

While stressing the importance of composition and technique in her work, Amos hopes viewers share her belief the desert encourages a purity of vision.