Allison HausIaden
TINY REMNANTS
Opening Reception: Saturday, November 23, 6-9pm
On view through December 22
Allison Hausladen is a painter based in Grayslake, IL where she has been “painting” her landscape with real flowers and being endlessly inspired by the creatures that are drawn to them. Through her art, she seeks to capture the feeling of a moment, a place, to better remember it. She hopes to inspire others to build and protect a native ecosystem around them and watch life unfold.
The paintings in “Tiny Remnants” are all inspired by interactions between plants and creatures Allison saw in her yard since removing invasives four years ago, giving remnants room to grow, and restoring the land into a native habitat garden and food forest.
“Remnants” are lands unaltered by people. From 1820 to 1900, American colonizers converted almost all of Illinois’ 22 million acres of prairie into farmland. Now, there are only 0.01% of prairie remnants left in our “prairie state.”
Tiny remnants remind us of what was here before and hint at what we’re supposed to do to regain balance and heal our lands. Those few remaining remnants must stay untouched, and then from that starting point, we can continue to restore already altered lands—including our own yards. In such a fragmented world, a native plant itself becomes a remnant of the past, capable of teaching us about the native life that depends on it.
Build and protect a native ecosystem around you and watch life unfold.
All of the art in Allison’s Blue Moon Collection is available for purchase.
Send inquiries to kendra@thebluemoongallery.com or text 224-388-7948
The Bloodroot and the Ants (March) 16 x 20 Acrylic on Cradle Board $600 Bloodroot splits the woodland dirt first, its leaves unfurling, signaling spring’s arrival. Patiently waiting decades for invasive buckthorn to be removed, it feels the sun. Ants spread its seeds a couple yards over, rewarded with their jelly coating, feasting in their hill. The waiting is worth it. Life begins again.
The Virginia Bluebells and the Bumblebee (April) 16 x 20 Acrylic on Cradle Board $600 The breeze sways the leaves, ringing the bells. Can the bumblebees hear this song? Do they see the periwinkle and know there’s a tasty gift as we do? By summer, they vanish, making room for others as the seeds they spread and bulbs wait to form a sea of blue.
The Blue Wild Indigo and the Bumblebee (May) 16 x 20 Acrylic on Cradle Board $600 Appearing from nowhere, the shrub-like wild indigo’s leaves stay vibrant green until frost. Bubbles of indigo light a torch for the bumblebee whose strong body is one of the few able to pry open the pea-like flowers. In fall, the bean-like dried seed pods rattle, then pop, sprinkling a generation.
The Pale Purple Coneflowers and the Firefly (June) 16 x 20 Acrylic on Cradle Board $600 In dusk’s blue light, the pale purple coneflowers glow like neon, pedals so new they point upright still. A firefly prepares for flight, spreading his wings, then glowing, his day and season of flying beginning after careful wintering under the leaves, dining on slugs and earthworms as larva. It’s time.
The Wild Bergamot and the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail (July) 16 x 20 Acrylic on Cradle Board $600 Wild bergamot’s nectar flows at the end of its long bloom, delighting the dark morph female eastern tiger, who traded yellow for black to look like her toxic pipevine cousin. Did her life begin here, eating magnolia, birch, ash, or wild cherry leaves, disguised as bird droppings then a snake?
The Anise Hyssop and the Hummingbird (July) 16 x 20 Acrylic on Cradle Board $600 Seeded under the skirt of a tall evergreen tree, the anise hyssop’s tiny purple flowers attract many, including a ruby-throated hummingbird that camouflages well against its licorice leaves as she daintily hovers from top to side, moving her way down. And in a quick hum, she’s gone.
The Black-Eyed Susan’s and the Fraternal Potter Wasp (August) 16 x 20 Acrylic on Cradle Board $600 In a bouquet of black-eyed Susan's sits a pot thrown from mud. An impossibly thin wasp emerges from the house made by his mother who filled it with live caterpillars before laying her egg and sealing the pot shut. Both predator and pollinator, the potter wasp is a gardener’s friend.
The Purple Coneflowers and the Goldfinch (September) 16 x 20 Acrylic on Cradle Board $600 The goldfinch fuels diligently on dried purple coneflower seeds, undaunted by human noises a few yards away. For over an hour, she readies for fall, thankful for this cache in a sea of suburbia, that this patch is no longer grass. This is what it means to garden for wildlife.
The Asters, Goldenrod, and the Bicolored Sweat Bee (October) 16 x 20 Acrylic on Cradle Board $600 A swirling mix of yellows, purples, pinks, and whites, the asters and the goldenrods attract the most pollinators—stronger together. I fear not for the first green sweat bee I’ve seen, the other bees, flies, butterflies and moths they attract because the mosquito spraying program has ended for the year.
Allison Hausladen