BEAUTIFUL GARDENS

By Denise Dick

YOUNGSTOWN — A San Francisco artist has immortalized a piece of Mill Creek Park’s Fellows Riverside Gardens in watercolor.

Gary Bukovnik visited the gardens, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, a few years ago, and their beauty struck him.

“I was so taken with the beauty of the park,” Bukovnik said. “Youngstown is very, very, very — I can’t emphasize it enough — fortunate to have such a beautiful garden.”

Keith Kaiser, gardens horticulture director, informed the artist about the upcoming golden anniversary of the gardens, and Bukovnik offered to create and donate a painting memorializing the occasion.

Last month, Kaiser and Bukovnik gathered all variety of golden tulips from the gardens to provide the model.

“We selected, dark gold tulips, light gold tulips, tulips with red and gold,” Bukovnik said.

A lover of tulips, the artist planned his Youngstown trip around when those flowers were in full bloom.

The painting also showcases the Fellows Favorite daffodil, a flower hybridized for the gardens’ anniversary by Brent and Becky Heath of Gloucester, Va., Kaiser said.

The color of the tulips matches the Gardens’ golden anniversary.

Bukovnik, a Cleveland native, spent about four hours sketching the blooms and about two days painting.

Bukovnik paints only flowers and generally spends weeks creating a new work. His normal process is to observe the subject he wants to create.

“Then I wait awhile so I forget exactly what they look like so when I paint, it creates an aura of fantasy,” he said.

For the Fellows painting, though, he wanted a more precise presentation of the Gardens’ blooms so the process eliminated the waiting phase.

“I painted everything from life,” Bukovnik said.

The painting, “Golden Celebration,” will be unveiled during a summer garden party July 25 at the D.D. & Velma Davis Education and Visitor Center in Fellows Riverside Gardens.

Kaiser said that 1,000 bulbs of the Fellows Favorite will be available for $2.50 each at the garden party.

“It’s special because it [the daffodil] was made for us and it’s a beautiful combination of yellow and white,” the horticulture director said.

“Golden Celebration,” a 40-by-30-inch work, will hang outside of the Rossi Auditorium inside of the D.D. & Velma Davis Education and Visitor Center. Other Bukovnik paintings hang at the center, and he has a piece at the Butler Institute of American Art.

Bukovnik also is donating a work to be auctioned at this summer’s garden party to benefit the gardens. He will have a show, titled “Blooms of Summer,” from Aug. 25 to Sept. 14 in the Davis Center’s Weller Gallery.

As an Ohio native, Bukovnik says he tries to give back. He initially learned of the Butler from the Cleveland gallery that represents him.

While his works were on display at the museum — a facility he calls impressive — Bukovnik learned of the gardens and planned a visit.

“We were driving on the road and there on the hill sits this incredible building, and there’s these beautiful gardens,” Bukovnik said. “The closer I got, the more beautiful it all was.”