Fine art photographer Catherine Era didn’t set out to create an impromptu art project during a garden club meeting. When members of the Memphis Grandview Garden Club arrived with buckets of their finest blooms, she decided to document them.
The demonstration soon became something more ambitious. She used her best camera to capture the flowers. The plump, radiant heirlooms demanded nothing less.
The accidental birth of a series
That afternoon marked the start of Era’s Fresco Flower Studies, a collection merging photography, plasterwork, and a love for plants. The first session held personal meaning: her children helped gather blossoms while she arranged them on mirrored panels to reflect the sky.
“We had generations of family in the garden together,” Era said. “It was abundance, but it was also a memory captured.”
The project gained deeper significance when she included roses from her grandmother’s garden—some over two centuries old. “She has 200-year-old roses,” says the photographer.
A visual journal of fleeting beauty
Era calls her work a way to record moments that might otherwise disappear. She has photographed marbles, butterflies, and even blue-ribbon winners at flower shows. The frescoed flowers, however, have become her most engaging project.
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Her method is precise. She dissects bouquets, sometimes isolating a single floret from a phlox cluster while letting larger blooms blur into softness. Light angles, sky reflections, and time of day all shape the final image. “The same arrangement photographed minutes later can look entirely different,” she noted.
The process is time-consuming. Era prints images on transparent film, layers them with wet plaster applications, and seals them with wax. The result is a textured effect that makes the flowers appear almost three-dimensional.
Her studio, a giant garage at her Memphis home, now serves as the center of this work. Before 2020, she divided her time between two condos—one for living, one for creating. When her family moved into the house with the garage, the space felt ideal.
Era views her compositions as partnerships with the gardeners who cultivate the flowers. Whether working with a bride’s bouquet or a Mother’s Day arrangement from her own home, each piece honors the choices behind the blooms. “I think of them as co-creations,” she said.
Her approach remains flexible. She might return to the studio in pajamas if inspiration strikes, driven by the same spontaneity that turned a simple demonstration into a long-term project. The work is hands-on, experimental, and deeply personal—focused on capturing a moment’s essence rather than perfection.
The Fresco Flower Studies keep evolving. Each new piece adds to a visual diary of gardens, memory, and the quiet beauty of flowers at their peak.
