ART ACTIVITIES

As her children grew, family trips would often involve stopping at roadsides along the way to hunt for specimens and Rica would make the preliminary sketches. The microscopic detail and colour had to be recorded before the plant faded.

If we would take off in the September holidays or the August holidays or an odd weekend anywhere, or just a trip down to Perth on business, I'd keep my eyes open for anything I thought was what I was after, and I'd say 'stop,' and of course it's not easy to stop a car in midstream as you might say. So then I'd have to back-pedal perhaps a quarter of a mile. Syd used to say they whistled at me, and sure enough there it would be. Then he was able to find occasionally a trigger plant that I was looking for and hadn't seen. He was very proud of that. He never ever said much about it, but other people always told me. (Battye Library, OH 2528, p. 11)

In response to a request from the Hunt botanical library of Pittsburgh, USA, Rica sent pieces for their collection in 1969, including the original frontispieces of her books Orchids of the West and Plants of Prey.

The Private Archives collection at the Battye Library holds the originals of nearly 500 of Rica Erickson's botanical art works from 1932 to 1992, including those used to illustrate her books Orchids of the West, Triggerplants and Plants of Prey in Australia. (ACC 5448A)

Click here to read the list of items in the Rica Erickson archives.

Rica Erickson continues to work on and exhibit her botanical art through the Botanical Artists Group (BAGs). The six original artists, Rica Erickson, Patricia Dundas, Penelope Leech, Philippa Nikulinsky, Margaret Pieroni and Katrina Syme, came together in 1991 at an exhibition at the Art Gallery of Western Australia , called 'Wildflowers In Art' and decided to meet regularly to pursue and develop their skills as botanical artists.