Oregon artist Frances Stilwell (1940–) left a successful career in science to devote herself to art. Working mainly in pastels, she documented Oregon’s native plants in their natural habitats. A selection of reproduced artwork created for her book, Oregon’s Botanical Landscape: An Opportunity to Imagine Oregon Before 1800, is on view in this breathtaking traveling exhibition, accompanied by Stilwell’s “grace notes”— her thoughts on the experience of creating the artwork, along with scientific information about the plants depicted. The artwork is organized into eight ecoregions (areas with similar environmental resources, such as geology, organisms, soil types). This traveling exhibition includes four reproduced artworks from each ecoregion.

Stilwell believes there is a strong connection between a sense of place and native plant imagery. “When we see these native plants in their native environments, we are assured that we are home in Oregon.”