I started the Backyard Abundance series about seven months into the Covid-19 pandemic. Summer was coming to a close and I wanted to finally acknowledge the deep appreciation I had for the warmth, beauty, and sense of life that had sustained me for the long stretch of fearful uncertainty in which we had been living. Lockdown arrived just a spring was awakening. I could see the perfect beauty of the peach tree blossoms, but I was unable to bask in the joy of their promise. By summer I had acclimated to the maelstrom of a frightening virus lurking everywhere, open wounds of racial injustice, cruelly negligent leadership, and deep societal rifts that hovered all around the small bubble my husband and I occupied. We took refuge and made meaning in tending to our backyard – the deck, the fence, the plants. The colors, smells, and sunlight it offered saved me. They reminded me that the world, and especially nature, can nourish us if we see its beauty.

I mixed watercolors and gouache to match as closely as possible the color of a single element from my yard – a river rock, lavender, olive tree leaf, fig, etc. That color was the one parameter for each piece. Painting techniques, styles, and compositions varied depending on what I was moved to explore at the moment, but I remained true to the colors in honor of the abundance offered at a time of darkness. -Chandra Cerrito