In Highlands, the natural world isn’t just scenery — it’s a source, a palette, and often the workbench itself. Here, artists shape wood from local forests, press blooms into paint, weave branches into sculpture, and coax light to reveal every vein in a leaf. Their mediums are as varied as their talents, but they share one thing: a deep connection to the plateau’s native materials. By drawing directly from the Southern Appalachian landscape, these creators ensure that their art doesn’t just depict Highlands — it is Highlands.
Carol Misner’s botanical paintings are instantly recognizable — monochromatic, meticulously detailed, and imbued with an almost gossamer transparency. Layering acrylics until the forms appear to float, she captures the structure and subtlety of each bloom. Viewers often compare her work to “x-rays in watercolor” for its luminous quality. From her Highlands studio, Misner paints what locals see in their gardens and along wooded paths: the full range of hydrangeas — from native to oakleaf to lacecap — wild azaleas with visiting butterflies, joe-pye weed nodding along stream banks, the four-petaled blossoms of dogwood, Solomon’s seal with its dangling cream bells, trillium in its brief spring glory, delicate dwarf iris, foam flower, and the many varieties of fern carpeting the forest floor.
Since moving here in 2015, her subjects have found their way into homes across the plateau and far beyond. Blackberry Farm, a renowned luxury resort in Tennessee, has commissioned more than two dozen works in which Highlands’ flora plays the starring role. Her paintings can be found at Acorns, Old Edwards home design and furnishing store, and her popular notecards – each identifying a featured bloom – are available at the Business Spot. For Misner, each work is about recognition: “I want people to be able to identify what they’re looking at and feel that connection to the land here.”
Christy Curcuru brings a painter’s eye and a designer’s sensibility to her work with flowers and botanicals. A graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design in painting and sculpture, she has developed a distinctive style that draws heavily on foraged materials and locally grown blooms, creating living compositions hat blur the line between arrangement and installation. Her projects often begin with what the plateau offers that day — the glossy greens and scarlet berries she uses to dress Highlander Mountain House for the holidays, branches and lichen collected for peace-sign wreaths, or a farmer’s haul of homegrown tomatoes and begonias that she’ll work into an event tablescape at Ruffed Grouse.
Her style, which she calls “Ojai, California meets Appalachia,” marries an effortless, organic look with a surprising amount of technical orchestration. Curcuru is also an accomplished visual artist in her own right. She is developing a series of botanical paintings that bring together trillium, rhododendron, hydrangea, jack-in-the-pulpit, dahlias, and ferns alongside rare orchid species in imagined, otherworldly compositions. Some include animals among the flora, arranged to read like fantastical bouquets. Teaching is another key part of her work. At the Highlands Biological Station, The Bascom, and Flat Mountain Farm, she leads classes that help people work with what’s locally available. She occasionally merges painting with floral work, turning a single workshop into an exploration of both mediums.
For Madison Minus, every piece of wood holds a secret. A Highlands native who has lived in Vietnam, Thailand, and Australia, taught scuba diving, snowboarded in Colorado, and worked as a commercial diver in Florida, Minus eventually returned home to focus on carpentry and woodturning. From his garage studio, he turns locally sourced hardwoods — maple, cherry, black walnut — into bowls, hollow forms, bottle stoppers, and necklaces. His favorite material is burl wood, prized for its wildly unpredictable grain patterns. “It’s like Christmas every time I put a piece on the lathe,” he says. “You never know what’s inside until you start turning it.” His process is deliberate. He starts with freshly cut, still-green wood, rough-turns it to shape, coats it with a wax-like sealant, and lets it dry for six months to a year, tracking its moisture loss by weight. Only when it’s completely dry does he return it to the lathe for finishing. The results range from $30 pendants to $400 salad bowls, with his signature maple burl hollow forms fetching as much as $1,500. He produces 30 to 50 pieces annually, about three-quarters from burl wood. All are available at The Bascom, where he also serves as facilities manager.
While their mediums differ, these artists share a reverence for Highlands’ native materials and a belief that the land itself shapes the work. Make your spring trip to Highlands an art-filled one. Join us at The Bascom for the Spring Exhibition Reception on Saturday, March 21 from 3-5pm. Start with a 2pm artist talk from winter resident artist Casey Schachner, then mingle with artists and fellow art lovers while you explore new exhibitions and enjoy light refreshments. Free and open to all. Click Here to Learn More and Register.