BOOK OF LEAVES

This lyrical, luminous, somehow humane collection of leaf paintings has a back story: the artist spent a few halcyon years in a big, quiet house in a 3-acre oak grove in the Missouri Ozarks. On her daily walks some fallen leaf or other would seem to reach up to her, telling her its name, its description. She would take it home and, next morning, paint its portrait. These are leaves that overlap with our own lives, showing us to ourselves with compassion, whimsy, and humility. A celebration of random moments of nature, colored by our own helpless fealty to the species that we are.