40×30 Oil on Canvas ©2024 Private Collection*

Some things really are a labor of love…

Way down south in Arizona lives a rare wildflower called the Arizona Blue Star.

We happened upon it while exploring near Patagonia, Arizona late in the day on April 22, 2023. We had just finished some tricky driving (at one point we had to drive backwards down a steep, narrow grade because there was no place to turn around) and had stopped to rest in the sandy wash. My eyes were darting around the landscape looking for color when I noticed them; tall, star-shaped, white and lilac flowers swaying in the breeze.

In all my exploring, I had never seen such bloom. When I got home, I researched this special plant and found out how rare it was. It’s only been found here and in one canyon in Sonora.

This plant is rated G2 “imperiled” which means it’s at high risk of extinction or elimination due to restricted range, few populations or occurrences, steep declines, severe threats, or other factors.

Seeing something for the first time is pretty special; capturing the moment on canvas, a challenge. But the Arizona Blue Stars lined up, so to speak. My collector Steve was looking for a special way to celebrate his wife, who loves southern Arizona. I shared my excitement for this plant and told him “I love the idea of a bouquet in the sky, as if held by a bride as she walks down the aisle.” Steve wrote back, “Coincidentally, we were married 34 years to the day of the photo. She held her bridal bouquet as she walked down the aisle under the swords of an Airforce Honor Guard.”

A long marriage, like the Arizona Blue Star, is rare. Golly, I love the west. Cheers Steve and Colleen!

*on display at “Wild Arizona” Sonoran Desert Museum, Opening 10-3-2025

28×22 Oil on Canvas

(this Painting will be a part of the Cowgirl Up exhibit and sale, March 31st, 2022. Please contact cowgirlup@westernmuseum.org to purchase)

From the Time and Place series

This was my first time visiting Kinishba Ruins near Fort Apache Historic Park. Having recently read Craig Child’s “House of Rain” and Martha Summerhayes’ “Vanished Arizona”, which both describe this historic area of Arizona, I was excited to walk this land and imagine the activity that once filled this 600-room pueblo.

Constructed around 1250 A. D. by the pre-Colombian Mogollon culture, there were supposedly 1000 occupants doing life here; having meals, celebrating, grieving losses, arguing, laughing, resting.

As I walked carefully around the sandstone walls, I began to see plant life that interested me. Specifically, the silverleaf nightshade.

These star-shaped purple blooming plants are common, but complicated. They are showy with yellow stamens and fruit, have beautiful silvery foliage, reseed easily, and are drought-tolerant. They are also prickly, and entirely toxic.
Most tribes who have inhabited this area have used nightshade for various purposes. In my research, I learned that the medicine men would chew the root and treat rattlesnake bites.
But maybe on an afternoon this this, the children of the pueblo would do what I did as a kid. Maybe they would gather a bunch for their mom. And maybe they would lay on their backs and watch the clouds. And maybe, when the sun sank and the skies turned from cerulean to indigo, they would watch the stars come out.
I bet they did.
-dh

from the Time and Place series

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