Peggy Turner Zablotny

Botanical Collage Fine Art Prints

Peggy Turner Zablotny designs and gardens in Vineyard Haven, Massachusetts on the Island of Martha’s Vineyard, creating botanical collages from the plant materials and flowers she grows and collects. As long as she can remember, she has been intrigued and fascinated by the pattern, texture and color of nature.  

An art major in high school, she had planned to study fine arts, however, after freshman year at the Philadelphia College of Art, she became intrigued by the opportunities in the Industrial Design Department where she was fortunate to have an incredible experience in problem solving methodology; something she always uses no matter what project is at hand. Graduating in 1970 with a Bachelor of Science degree, she and her husband Steve, joined forces in 1975 and established Z Studio, a design firm that specializes in exhibit and graphic design among many other creative design endeavors.

In 1994, Peggy began experimenting with pressing flowers from her garden and creating botanical compositions which combined her love of design, art and gardening. “My botanical collage compositions combine my fine art and design passions in my personal form of expression. What is most striking to me is nature's brilliance…it continues to astonish and excite me. My botanical collage compositions celebrate the discovery of nature through the medium of original prints in order to share my vision with others.”

Peggy combines the age old art of pressed plants and flowers with current technology to create timeless original images. She works surrounded by flowers, stems, leaves, seeds, petals, pieces of color, texture and pattern; often studying the details through powerful loupes, discovering a world that can’t be seen with a casual glance. “The fine art prints have enhanced and amplified my garden’s fleeting rhapsodies of color, texture and pattern,” explains Peggy, “flowers, petals, leaves and colors become garden tapestries, paintings and lyrics to visual songs.” 

While her collages are clearly compositions with plants and flowers, the elements often morph into brilliant abstract shapes and intricate patterns. The concept is simple, the process complex, the results sublime. After pressing selected garden clippings, Peggy creates her unique botanical collages, some as small as an inch or two. Once she is satisfied with the composition, the collage is generally secured under glass and photographed as soon as possible. The resulting transparency is scanned and the work is proofed to match, as closely as possible, the actual collage. When the proof meets Peggy’s standards for quality, detail and color, she approves it and the first IRIS Giclée is printed with archival vegetable dyes on fine hand crafted rag paper. Peggy signs and numbers each print and embosses the paper with a custom chop mark. 

For Peggy, it’s not all about the technology, it’s about the smell, the texture and the unpredictability. “You have no idea when you're planting what will bloom, no idea how it will come out of the press, and it’s anyone's guess how the collage will evolve. There’s a constant sense of discovery. The moment you pick is the moment colors start changing.” Peggy says. "My compositions celebrate the mysteries of nature, and the IRIS Giclée prints give me a way to share the collages’ qualities in an enduring medium.”

Because of the prints’ image size and quality one can see delicate veining and textures not visible with the naked eye even in the actual collage. “I want the print to be as true to the actual as possible,” says Peggy. “I’m attuned to all the details and nuances of the petals and patterns, by enlarging an image, I can present my vision on paper for others to see.” The brilliance and colors of the small actual collage may soon mellow to muted tones, but not so with the colors in the original IRIS Giclée print.

Peggy has exhibited her prints in many galleries and has been represented in many publications since her first show in 1996 at The Field Gallery in West Tisbury where she continues to show her work annually. For a complete listing of exhibits and publications, please contact the artist or the gallery exhibiting her work.

“Peggy’s universe, is like walking through an autumn forest, a blooming summer garden-—one can almost smell the petals, grasses, dusty sunlight.”

 -Pat Waring, Martha's Vineyard Times

 “The images in Ms. Zablotny’s still lifes are so clear that the flower petals, leaves, stems and other natural objects pop out as if they were real, complete with shadows and three dimensions…If the function of art is to help the viewer see the world in new ways, Peggy [Turner] Zablotny accomplishes that goal with finesse.”

 - Brooks Robards, Martha's Vineyard Times

 “The images are startling, powerful, delicate and beautiful. The work dignifies an aspect of nature that we can easily oversee. We see the flower but fail to see the intricate beauty within the petal.”

 - Mark Alan Lovewell, Vineyard Gazette

 “Finally, someone who has brought the art of flower pressing into the 21st Century.”

 - Alison Bradley, Editor, Fusion Flower Magazine, Scotland 

“And like all collage work, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. It is Peggy [Turner] Zablotny’s composition, not the individual pressed flowers or the technology used to enlarge them, that makes these prints extraordinary.”

 - C.L. Fornari, A Garden Lover's Martha's Vineyard