‘Florida Wildflowers’ to bloom at Saturday’s ArtWalk

Jenny Bleackley

Jenny Bleackley likes to go on long walks. She frequently stops to ogle flowers, leaves, bugs and bees, much to the consternation of her husband. “I think it was Oliver Sacks that said ‘Nature is my religion,’” Bleackley explains. “And it really is mine. I need to walk in it to get some perspective in life.”

This love and respect for the natural world finds a direct outlet in Jenny Bleakley’s watercolors. An exhibition of the St. Petersburg artist’s Florida Wildflowers paintings opens this week at the Tully-Levine Gallery, on the Warehouse Arts District’s ArtXchange campus.

It’s part of a larger exhibition and installation, Something Blue, curated and coordinated by multi-disciplinary artist Alice Ferrulo.

Art has become a second-act triumph for Bleackley, who spent much of her early life watching her dreams of a painting career trampled like so many wildflowers.

She was born in Virginia to an American mother and British father; when Jenny was 4 the family settled on a farm in Suffolk, England. She has fond memories of painting outdoors alongside her mum.

“I wanted to go to art school, but wasn’t allowed basically, because it was the ‘70s – it was drugs, sex and rock ‘n’ roll, and my father really didn’t want to see me doing that,” Bleackley explains. “Of course, I’ve regretted it ever since. I had to, instead, go to a secretarial college.”

Florida Wildflowers #3, Mixed Flowers, Jenny Bleackley.

She spent 30 years working in London business offices, half of that time as a divorced mother raising two children by herself. “And there was no way I could look at a blank piece of paper,” she says. “I had to work hard for a living.

Once her children had grown, she returned to her art.

She and her second husband, property investment consultant Adrian Bleackley, moved to Sussex, south of London; Jenny began taking art classes in earnest, and gravitated to watercolors. After a few years the couple made the permanent jump to St. Petersburg, where they’d visited friends on occasion. In 2011, they purchased a home in the Old Northeast section.

She was one of the first artists to have a studio in the Warehouse Arts District when the campus opened in 2017.

The Florida Wildflowers series was launched, inauspiciously, in 2020. “During the Covid lockdown,” Bleackley reports, “I said to Adrian ‘Let’s explore all the state parks in Pinellas County.’ And so we did, and we saw these wildflowers, which I was absolutely spellbound by. Because they’re resilient. They survive flooding water, and extreme heat, and the jungle around them fighting for space and light.”

She decided to paint wildflowers on 24×48 panels – large canvases, to give them the respect she believed they deserved. “Psychologically, it was a way of discovering the resilience to the politics that was going on, and to the Covid that was going on, and all the sh– on social media … and it was a lifesaver for me. I surrounded myself with them.”

Bleackley has also begun her own wildflower garden, sans fertilizer, behind the family home. “I walk the talk as well,” she beams.

Something Blue includes the 11 wildflower paintings, plus nine from Bleackley’s earlier Cool, Calm and Collected series (each paired with an original poem), and six from another series she calls Lost in the Everglades.

It was the Cool, Calm and Collected series – and, especially, Bleackley’s poems – that got Ferrulo’s attention.

Something Blue sculpture, by Maria Saraceno.

“They were so inspiring,” Ferulo says. “The poetry is gorgeous – it addresses the sea, and sailors, and water … they’re just so beautifully written. Minimalistic and beautiful. They really inspired this whole piece.”

Ferrulo, a dancer and interpretive artist, was also inspired by Something Blue, a pearls sculpture by Maria Saraceno. Its title is a reference to marriage.

And so, “Every piece is inspired by something blue, something that’s connected to blue in some way. It’s a play on the phrase ‘something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue.’”

The work – including photography (plus dance photography, from the late Tom Kramer), a hedge-wall garden installation by Victoria Fitzgerald-Vix Fitz and more – will be introduced with a sold-out event Friday, featuring a dance performance by Ferrulo and her Black Horse Theatre, and public readings (by the author) of several of Bleackley’s poems.

Alice Ferrulo. Photo: Tom Kramer.

For the Second Saturday ArtWalk (Saturday, June 10), many (but not all) of the elements of the sold out Friday event will be repeated. The Black Horse dance performance will not repeat on Saturday, also Ferrulo will be in attendance to talk about the myriad interpretations of Something Blue.

On Saturday, actress Elvia Hill will perform Victoria Jorgensen’s short theater piece Delia, inspired by the American blue collar worker, at 6 and 7 p.m.

“The whole gallery is perfectly transformed into this installation for the exhibition,” Bleackley enthuses. “It’s absolutely amazing. Alice has done amazing stuff. I just feel so incredibly lucky.”

Something Blue at the Tully-Levine Gallery/Warehouse Arts District Association, 515 22nd St. South, St. Petersburg, 727-256-0821. Opens Saturday, June 10 (5-9 p.m.) during Second Saturday Artwalk. Runs through June 30.