My Giverny

In 1985, Leon and I purchased an old dairy barn turned gas station turned antiques store in Chautauqua, New York. We retrofitted the sprawling black buildings into our summer home, my studio, and an art gallery. For over 30 years, I cultivated three large perennial gardens in the front, facing Route 394. Many years later, we planted a bed of blue, purple and yellow perennials behind the barn to enjoy as we looked out at two ponds and woods beyond.

With plantsman Randy Nyberg and later, landscaper Jim Mason, we created gardens that were distinctive because of their tall flowers selected to sway in the north and south breezes and nod to passing walkers, bikers, cars, and motorcycles. The garden also acted as a friendly barrier and protector of privacy for myself and my family who lived behind it.  

A large gravel driveway still separates the gardens from the long black barn with white trim and gray metal roof. For eighteen summers, that barn and adjacent former auction room were the home of the Gloria Plevin Studio and Gallery which I closed in 2002.

The gardens were a work of art-in-progress. Their mixture of cultivated perennials and wild flowers attracted photographers, butterflies, and lots of bees. The plantings not only provided ever-green resource material for my paintings and watercolor Botanicals, they fed my soul.

I was fifty when we moved to 5073 West Lake Road. Eventually, my gardens required helpers. Roxanne Zemcik and her daughter Mary Mowers were careful and sensitive collaborators. Randy Nyberg continued to supply spectacular plants. My darling Leon died in 2008.

Four children and seven grandchildren visited their Grandma Gloria at Chautauqua until I sold the property in 2016. Each summer, I enthusiastically shared my sense of wonder and encouraged my progeny to admire the unique qualities of each new plant and the paintings it inspired.

Gloria Plevin