People are falling in love with wildflowers. From planting meadows to discovering the culinary value of our native plants, we are developing a love affair with those bits of color and beauty that can be found throughout the fields and woods in every part of the country. Unfortunately, it is impossible to capture and hold the ephemeral beauty of a woodland wildflower. So we do the next best thing and surround ourselves with an artist’s interpretation of the glories of nature.
Trailer McQuilkin’s genius has transformed copper and paint into wildflowers that look so real they make you want to bend and smell their fragrance. What makes these sculptures so incredibly lifelike is the attention to detail. Just as you rarely find a perfect, unblemished blossom in the wild, so do you find in these sculptures the wilted leaves, bug bites and flaws that are natural part of a wildflower’s life cycle. McQuilkin is to be particularly commended for his careful study and attention to the botanical accuracy of his creations.
Working strictly from live wildflowers, he is able to record precisely the most intricate parts of even the tiniest flowers. The beauty and wonder of his sculptures are based in the accurate detail found in each piece.
The Swiss-French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote, “The plants seem to have been sown in profusion over the earth, like the stars in the sky, to invite man through their attraction of pleasure and curiosity to study nature; but the stars are very far from us…plants, however, are within our reach. They are born at our feet and in our hands.” Trailer McQuilkin makes it possible to literally hold the tangible beauty of wildflowers in our hands.
Laura C. Martin
author, Wildflower Folklore