Bucci's Art

CAROL HENDERSON
acrylic paintings

May 24 - June 27, 2003

Mostly Heirlooms

Sometimes I looked at an heirloom tomato, one of my favorite foods, and thought, This is too strange and wonderful to eat. Then that tomato would go in and out of the refrigerator to preserve it until I could finish the painting (definitely not the way to treat a tomato intended for food). I painted the aspect of the tomato I found most remarkable-its color from a certain angle, its plumpness, its general odd shape, markings on the skin. I wanted each tomato (or eggplant or pepper or squash) to have a big presence on the paper. This series is a departure for me, because my work tends to be abstract. I started it when a colleague from work brought in produce from his garden, including the twisted cucumber in "Life of a Cucumber." No abstract imagery had been coming to mind and I needed a subject. The shape of the cucumber amused me, and I was also intrigued by its change in color as it aged. Soon heirloom tomatoes started appearing in the market, and the series took off.

Heirloom tomatoes are grown from seeds collected by home gardners and small farmers and passed down through generations. The multicolored, curiously shaped tomatoes found in farmers' markets and some grocery stores for a few months each year are all that's left of the countless tomato varieties once grown in the U.S. In their place are the bland-tasting commercial hybrids that were developed to meet marketers' demand for durability and uniformity. Far superior in flavor to most of these hybrids, heirloom tomatoes are treasured by people who love to cook and eat.

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