Review

"Carnivorous Pitcher Plant," Dried and Mounted Plant Material.

Brigid Greene

5:30 p.m.-9 p.m.

Justus Drugstore a restaurant
106 W. Main St.
Smithville, MO
816.532.3200

Hours: 5:30-10 p.m. Tuesday –Thursday, 5:30-11 p.m. Friday-Saturday, 5:30-9 p.m. Sunday
Runs indefinitely.

Artist's site: http://www.brigidgreene.com
Gallery site: http://www.drugstorerestaurant.com

Like a film star unrecognizable out of makeup, nature rarely holds up to its artistic representations. Trees droop, feathers draggle, leaves tatter and crumble.

Infrequency, however, is not the same as impossibility. Perfection happens and, sometimes, endures.

Brigid Greene doesn't draw or paint her impeccable natural images. Hers is a method not of depiction, but of discovery and arrangement. Greene hunts close to home; she gathers plants from local sources, preserves her finds and mounts them.

There's a science to her art, and Greene has studied it closely. I learned these principles and effective methods of mounting at leading scientific institutions, she writes,  including the herbaria at the St. Louis Botanical Gardens and the New York Botanical Gardens. The process has no environmental impact and results in specimen that cannot change in composition or form. I use special glue developed just for plants, archival thread, mat board and other materials.

These are more than dry display specimens. Greene arranges the leaves to accentuate their lines, textures and curves, elevating botany to art.

Look at the way she presents the carnivorous pitcher plant above. Even if you didn't know what it was in life, that bladelike curve purrs, Bring me meat.

Greene's work is a fixture at Justus Drugstore a restaurant, which has gained deserved national acclaim for chef-owner Jonathan Justus' cuisine (and undeserved, unwelcome attention from the state over its name). Her pieces there include leaves from a number of food plants, kale, squash and papaya among them.

Wait ... papaya? Isn't that a tropical plant? Since when is western Missouri the tropics?

"I have a neighbor who grows them," Greene says.

The pairing of Greene's art and Justus Drugstore a restaurant is harmonious for a couple of reasons.

Justus is a visual artist as well as a culinary whiz; he has several works on display at the restaurant (although these, unlike his plated creations, aren't for sale). And like Greene, he believes passionately in sourcing locally, finding the treasures in one's own neighborhood and presenting them to the world.

Together, Justus and Greene offer a feast for the eyes as well as for the palate. Drop by and dig in.

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