WILSON, N.C. — December 14, 2023 — The North Carolina Botanical Garden has honored Barton College’s Susan Fecho with a coveted page in its 2024 Botanical Art and Illustration Calendar for the coming year. Her original botanical illustration, Ebony spleenwort, is featured for the month of December.
Fecho, a professor of art in the School of Arts and Humanities at Barton College and a renowned artist of regional and national recognition, is one of a distinctive group of artists whose works were chosen for the upcoming year’s calendar. This opportunity for illustration submission was limited to current and past participants of the NCBG Certificate in Botanical Art & Illustration.
To be accepted for review, submitted illustrations were required to be of plants native to the southeastern United States and could not have been featured in a previous NCBG Botanical Art & Illustration calendar. The artists’ names are printed with the illustration along with the scientific and common names of the plant. Proceeds from calendar sales support the conservation efforts of the North Carolina Botanical Garden.
A great choice for Christmas gifts, these beautifully illustrated wall calendars are available at https://shop.ncbg.unc.edu/product/2024-bai-calendar-wall/ and desk calendars are available at https://shop.ncbg.unc.edu/product-category/stationery/
Those interested in additional botanical art images by Fecho, will find her book “Gravely Speaking. Garden Graveyard” images of the beautiful Calvary Episcopal Church garden graveyard in historic Tarboro, N.C., to be extraordinary. This 88-page book shares 38 plates of botanicals – self-designed artistic illustrations. She also included photographs of gravestones in the book, as well as other art work pertaining to the garden graveyard. This book is available at https://www.etsy.com/listing/1603645177/book-gravely-speaking-garden-graveyard
About the Artist —
Fecho holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from East Carolina University and a certificate in Botanical Art and Illustration from the North Carolina Botanical Garden, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. (The Certificate in Botanical Art and Illustration program began in 2001. The first students graduated in 2005, and since then, 68 students have completed this program.)
Fecho specializes in multi-media printmaking, surface designer, and illustration. Her lifelong devotion to art includes more than 40 years of teaching and working with art students in the United States and abroad. In addition, she has pursued postgraduate studies at various institutions including Jan Van Eyck Academie, Humboldt Field Research Institute, Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, Northern Illinois University, N.C. Botanical Gardens, and Penland School of Crafts.
She has exhibited nationally and internationally, and has received numerous awards, grants, and residencies. Born in Virginia and a long-term resident of North Carolina, Fecho shares that she is connected to “place” – she has a deep appreciation for the natural world of North Carolina, her home. Her created images have been accepted into several major collections: the Smithsonian Institution’s American Art Museum/National Portrait Gallery Library, Washington, D.C.; the Word and Image Department, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, England; and the Museum of Women Artists, Washington, D.C.
Fecho’s academic contributions appear in scientific journals such as Nature Reviews Urology, The Journal of Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, The Journal of Neurosurgery: Spine, The Journal of Urology, and The Neuronal & Systems Mechanisms of Affective Touch & Therapeutic Tissue Manipulation Research (NeuronS_MATTR) Network. Fecho’s work also has appeared in educational/inspirational such as Forward Future: Journal of Integrative Teaching International, Kakalak: An Anthology of Carolina Poets, New Art International: A Compendium of Recent Work, Portrait of the Outer Banks: An Artist’s Sketch, Our State Magazine, and VIVA NOLA Magazine.
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