Mixed media artist Amy Wendland will speak about her Botany Series, highlighting work created as a Denver Botanic Gardens 2022 Artist-in-Residence. Recently, Ms. Wendland’s collection of studio supplies expanded to include over 200 deaccessioned herbarium samples from the Kathryn Kalmbach Herbarium of Vascular Plants at Denver Botanic Gardens. Categorized by genus and species, herbaria are filed as part of a genetic library telling a scientific story. But that’s not the only narrative a plant can tell.

 Rescued from dusty storerooms, repurposed herbarium samples now serve as inspiration for visual stories. Amy works directly on the mounting paper, drawing and painting around the selected specimens. The idea is always inspired by the plant. Looking through the lens of botany, Amy utilizes a combination of humor, offbeat materials and obsessive craft tell elliptical stories of humanity’s relationship with itself and the environment. The Botany Series is a marriage of the objective and subjective, the fanciful and factual – and aspires to offer new perspectives on the natural world.