Connecting with Nature

Natural materials showcase in artist’s partnership with Crosby Arboretum

Story by Leah Barbour • Photos by Kevin Hudson

The little girl laughs as she grabs the biggest dandelion she can see. Inspired, she seizes a sheet of paper from the artist beside her and presses the flower onto the page, smashing the bright dandelion color in a bright yellow, wandering mark across the paper. 

Robin Whitfield, who gave the child the paper, stands awestruck, watching her friend’s daughter use the flower to draw and color on the page.

“I already had my fine arts degree from Delta State (University), but I had not figured out who I was as an artist,” Whitfield remembers. “And when the little girl started drawing with the dandelion, just like yellow paint, I was like, ‘oh my gosh’—my mind was blown.

“All of a sudden, this whoosh of everything I ever learned in art history came to the forefront: No matter where you live in this world, whatever plants and minerals are in front of you, that is your palette.” 

Whitfield began practicing and refining her new technique—gathering, preparing, and using natural materials to paint. She opened a studio in downtown Grenada. Already a regular visitor—and paddler—at the nearby Lee Tartt Nature Preserve, where swamps support a rich diversity of plants and wildlife, Whitfield helped found a conservation-focused nonprofit, Friends of Chakchiuma Swamp.

Meanwhile, Whitfield was teaching what she was learning. She traveled the state through teaching opportunities sponsored by the Mississippi Arts Commission Artist Roster, which took her to museums, universities, elementary schools, alternative schools, and summer camps. Sharing her knowledge with diverse audiences taught her how to work with different kinds of people in different kinds of places.

About 15 years ago, Whitfield was a keynote speaker for the Mississippi Environmental Education Alliance, and when the group went outside for a pigment-gathering activity, she met Pat Drackett, then the senior curator at Mississippi State University’s Crosby Arboretum. 

Drackett, who was named arboretum director in 2011, enjoyed Whitfield’s interactive presentation so much that she invited her to offer a workshop at the arboretum, located in Pearl River County. Since that time, Whitfield has spent many days painting and exploring at the arboretum, as well as offering workshops centralized in the Pinecote Pavilion. 

“I’d never been to a place quite like Crosby Arboretum, to a botanical garden where native habitats have been constructed from scratch,” Whitfield remembers. “Going there is like seeing a really beautiful thought, and Crosby has become really special in my imagination.

“I believe in the mission of the arboretum, in protecting and preserving the natural environment and finding ways for people to connect with it. I like doing my small part here, sharing in the moment and having a shared experience.”

Whitfield’s April class there, at capacity with 15 registrants, offered each participant the chance to learn more about nature and see it in a new way as the group learned how to identify, collect, prepare, and use natural materials in color palettes and artistic media. 

“I’m a naturalist, and doing these workshops outside lets me begin to show these people beauty and invite them to interact with that beauty,” Whitfield says. “People are scared of nature, but my mission—and my nonprofit’s mission—is literally to connect people with nature.” 

Producing art outdoors offers infinite unique, creative experiences, Whitfield emphasizes, and painting outside with the palette she creates herself, in the arboretum or any other special outdoor place, fosters a connection to nature, through both the creative process and the final product itself. 

“If I can help people exchange that fear with curiosity and a sense of wonder, I’ve realized that is a form of art as much as is the painting on the page itself,” Whitfield adds.