About Fran Hawbaker

Garden Collection: Garden & Temple

The garden has multiple meanings to me.

I look at each blossom individually, closely. The shape of one petal leaning into the next. How they touch, how they curl, how they hold each other up. That interaction — that is where the magic is. If you get close enough, you can feel it.

The colors are never the same. Never. From 4 a.m. to noon to dusk to moonlight, the same peony changes completely. The sun moves, the moon moves, and the garden reinvents itself. That is why I paint them so large — so you have to come close and see that change happening.

And the nurturing — tending a garden reminds me of raising my three grown children. You water, you wait, you worry, you watch. You can't rush a peony. You can't rush a child. You just love them and give them light and let them become what they were meant to be.

The first photo you see is only the underpainting of Peony Parade — orange ground, a few lines, one tiny pink petal started at 4 a.m. The finished piece you see next to me is months of those early mornings, of watching, of nurturing.

This collection is my garden. It is my escape, my early morning prayer, my study of light, and my mother’s heart, all at once.

Garden & Temples

Frances Hawbaker — Estero, Florida Studio — 2026