suzanne stryk - u.s. botanic gardens

Suzanne Stryk is showing some of her more careful "Green Evolution" illustration at the U.S. Botanic Gardens thru November 11, 2007. Highlighted is the exhibition of personal sketch journals containing extremely intricate pen & ink works. I always marvel when artists turn over their journals, to me there is nothing more that points to the core of thought and process.

The Botanic show also features Stryk's drawings (her paintings are somewhat less represented) and is a beautiful and thoughtful corridor walk OUT of the gardens. The lovely tea-washed effect in some of the works lends to a very earthy feel. I saw several people pausing and reflecting on the WORK, the hours, the intentful effort, and the complexities involved in botantical illustration.

Stryk, in her mid-fifties, is originally from Chicago and has shown at several solo and group shows. She enjoys representation in some pointed and impressive private and corporate collections (Bank of America) and many of her works have appeared in esteemed publications (Orion). Although you could walk through the show during your thirty minute lunch "hour" and have done it justice, you're certain to leave with a new found appreciation for nature's grace.

What I really love though, is Stryk seems to glaringly prove as example one, that you DO NOT need to go to big city art school to make it big in the big city! Here she is at the freaking SMITHSONIAN in Washington DC where you can throw a rock to NGA and the Corcoran - and her MFA in Painting was accomplished at East Tennessee State University with a BA in Art History at Northern Illinois University! Gotta love a gal with talent. Gotta love a gal with gusto.