NIGHTSHADE

Sometimes I wish I were more of a botanist and I actually knew the plants I encounter out in the field. But in this case I am glad I did not know that this little bushy plant with the drooping white flowers was a deadly nightshade growing right beside a monument to the area’s indigenous people, right in the middle of their sacred burial site. If I had known this little plant was so associated with death, I might have edited out of the scene or been tempted to give it added symbolic emphasis. As it happened, I painted it because it was there and only found out what it was later.