Flowers in all their ephemeral beauty are symbols of celebration and consolation. For Nicole Nutt, whose work consists of glorious blossoms that seem ready to break free from two dimensions, flowers represent healing.
Nutt first learned landscape painting in oils from her grandfather in a small fishing town in Alaska and then went on to get an art degree at BYU Idaho. About three years ago, she and her young family moved to Spokane, choosing a house near a wooded area.
"I had just left kind of a high-demand religion, and so it was just kind of a dark time," she says. "I found that going through the woods, I would always look at the wildflowers, and it was just something that started bringing me joy, and I started to feel like myself again. So I thought, I'm just going to paint things that make me happy."
She began creating detailed flowers and then had an inspiration: adding thread. "The embroidery was just kind of an experiment I did one day, and then I didn't look back. I love the texture and the dimension it adds," she says in her cozy studio in the basement of the family home.
Nutt first sketches and then paints blossoms using watercolor; like many frugal artists, she started out using leftover paper scraps for her portraits of the small blooms.
She now works in a variety of sizes, from small, lifelike and delicate single blooms to exuberant oversized roses.
Once the flowers are painted, she cuts them out and hand stitches them either onto watercolor paper or onto stretched and toned canvases.
Early on, she focused on small sweetly framed pieces composed of a single bloom. "I really like to have smaller pieces that make it more accessible," she says, noting she's conscious of price-points as a regular exhibitor at many local art shows. Recently she's begun combining lots of blossoms into bigger collages, including a large work-in-progress featuring those bountiful roses.
Nicole Nutt will be at the 33 Artists Market Sat., April 20, from 11 am - 5 pm at the Wonder Building, 835 N. Post. The market runs monthly on the third Saturday of the month.