|
 Biology
Professor Sharon Rose methodically researched the mind of a scientist.
Serendipity led her to the heart of an artist.
This past summer, Willamette professors Sharon Rose and Carol Long
wanted to research women naturalists in the Northwest who had worked
in the last century. But when Long was appointed interim dean of
Willamette’s College of Liberal Arts, the project was left
to Rose. She decided to narrow the project to a single scientist,
Helen Margaret Gilkey. That decision proved to be one of many twists
and turns that would lead the biologist on an unexpected journey
of discovery and personal renewal.
“We started with the archives at Oregon State University,”
explains Rose, an expert in mycology (mushrooms). “Helen Gilkey’s
name kept coming up.”
 Gilkey,
the daughter of a large and prominent Willamette Valley farm family,
attended Oregon Agricultural College (now OSU) and received her
master’s degree in 1911. The following year, she entered the
University of California at Berkeley where she became the first
woman to receive a Ph.D. in botany. In 1918, she returned to Corvallis
as an assistant professor and became curator of the college’s
herbarium, a job she held for 33 years.
During her career, she expanded the OSU herbarium from 25,000 to
75,000 plant specimens and wrote more than 40 articles and books.
She became one of the world’s leading experts in underground
fungi (truffles) and tubers. In 1996, Gilkey was inducted into the
Berkeley Women’s Hall of Fame.
“I kept coming across these little drawings in Helen’s
work,” says Rose. “I had a feeling there might be more,
but I didn’t know where to look.”
Gilkey had been a botanical illustrator during her tenure at Berkeley.
Though she didn’t receive any credit, she drew most of the
plants in the original Jepson’s Manual of the Flowering Plants
of California, considered the seminal book on the state’s
flora. She had illustrated many of her own textbooks. Rose wondered
if any of Gilkey’s artwork survived.
 Research
lead Rose to La Rea (Dennis) Johnston ’57, a former colleague
of Gilkey’s and co-author of the revised edition of Gilkey’s
classic book, Handbook of Northwestern Plants. Gilkey, who never
married, had left many of her personal effects to her friend and
co-author. Rose contacted Johnston and asked if she had any of Gilkey’s
artwork. Johnston, a widow in her 70s who lives in the Corvallis
foothills, wasn’t interested and turned her down flat. Rose
was certain she’d hit a dead-end.
Then fate smiled and Rose received an email from the reluctant
Johnston. She would allow Rose to see what she had. Long and Rose
made the arduous trip to Johnston’s home in the country. After
offering them tea, Johnston produced a crinkled paper sack. Inside
were dozens of exquisite watercolors of Northwest plants –
orchid, rose, lily, lupine, cornflower, snowberry, bitterroot, huckleberry,
kinnikinnik, poison oak. The paintings were not only elegant, they
were exacting in their detail – delicate stamens, tiny hairs,
scalloped-edged leaves. On many, Gilkey had written her initials,
“HMG.”
“We were stunned,” says Rose, recalling the first time
she saw Gilkey’s artwork. “She wasn’t trained
as an artist, yet she had innate talent. They are so incredibly
lovely. I fell in love with her art.”
While Gilkey’s pen and ink illustrations can be found in
her books and in those of other authors, her watercolors have never
been displayed. Rose and Long convinced Johnston to let them borrow
the work for an exhibition at Willamette’s Hallie Ford Museum
of Art.
Amongst the artwork, Rose found a tiny painting of mushrooms with
numbers like “R-16” and “R-23.” Research
revealed these numbers referred to a watercolor color standard for
mushrooms called the Ridgeway Color Standard, published at the turn
of the century. Ridgeway produced a few hundred of his handmade
color palette books, which are now rare collectibles. Perhaps Helen
had owned a Ridgeway book, Rose speculated. On a hunch, she contacted
a mycologist in Kentucky who does color concordance from the Ridgeway
Standard to more contemporary color systems. He wrote back, saying
he not only knew about the Ridgeway system, he had purchased Gilkey’s
personal Ridgeway book and would be happy to lend it to her.
“I was dumbfounded,” says Rose, smiling broadly. “He’d
bought Helen’s Ridgeway book at a rare book sale. It had her
name in it. What are the chances of that?”
Rose’s final bit of serendipity occurred at the OSU herbarium
where she asked a friend and colleague whether they had any of Gilkey’s
watercolors. Not likely, he said. A few weeks later, a package arrived
with a half-dozen large watercolors painted by Gilkey. “These
were just sitting there dusty for 30 years,” says Rose, fingering
one of the paintings, a delicate illustration of a penstemon. “They
were going to throw them away.”
 Rose’s
research on Helen Gilkey is nearly complete. She’s been busy
getting the artwork ready for display. Archivists from the Portland
Art Museum have been expertly cleaning and preserving some of the
pieces. All the preparation will culminate in a first-ever exhibition
and celebration of Gilkey’s artwork at Willamette’s
Hallie Ford Museum of Art Jan. 10-March 13. In addition to the exhibition,
Rose and other botanical experts will give talks and there will
be a two-day workshop on botanical illustration. Rose has even approached
OSU Press about writing a book on Gilkey’s life and work.
For Rose, it’s all been part of a remarkable journey. “This
project has taught me that I can be and do whatever I want intellectually,”
says Rose, who has been the primary force behind the project, including
securing funding from the Oregon Council of the Humanities. “In
mid-career, you can get into a rut and this has been incredibly
stimulating. When I started, I knew nothing about being a curator
of an exhibition. I didn’t know how to talk to art restorers
or write a grant proposal to a humanities organization. I didn’t
know how to do phone interviews. Now I do.”
The Willamette professor is surprised and a little embarrassed
at the interest and enthusiasm for the Gilkey project. Gardening
groups like Berry Botanical have called asking about the exhibition
and the workshops. Does she think Gilkey would be pleased with all
the attention?
“Helen Gilkey was one of the anonymous, unsung heroes of
her day,” she says. “Her books have been reprinted and
are used in classrooms and by hikers today. I’m trying to
highlight her and her exquisite work in a respectful way. Would
she like it? She’d be a little embarrassed, but I also think
she’d be pleased.”
– Bobbie Hasselbring
“Helen M. Gilkey: The Art of Botanical Illustration,”
will be exhibited from Jan. 10-March 13, 2004, at the Hallie Ford
Museum of Art, 700 State Street, Salem, Ore., 503-370-6855. Professor
Sharon Rose discuss “The Life and Art of Helen Gilkey”
at a reception Jan. 23 from 6-8 p.m. |
