Budding flowers, budding art

Published 9:30 pm Wednesday, July 16, 2025

“Simply Peonies” is the latest body of work by artist and peony farmer Gerri Martin. These oil paintings showcase the peony flowers, from the field to the vase, depicted in their variety of true-to-life vibrant colors.

Martin’s exhibit coincides with the Homer Chamber of Commerce’s annual Homer Peony Festival that kicked off July 1, with weeks of art activities and events, workshops, farm tours and flower sales that celebrate the dozens of peony farms in and around the Homer area.

“Peonies are a delicate, fragrant and long-lived plant that can bloom for generations, and I enjoy painting them because of their depth and colors,” Martin said. “For many, it’s a sentimental flower and people just love them.”

Her painting, “Sun-Kissed Peonies,” is a 20-inch-by-20-inch oil painting on canvas that was done from a photo she took while standing on her deck, where a vase of flowers was backlit by the afternoon sun.

“This particular peony is a ‘Krinkle White’ and what we call a single, with fewer, more delicate petals,” she said. “My hope was to capture that translucent look that the light created.”

While “Sun-Kissed Peonies” displays the flowers in a softer, almost fragile manner, her piece “Paul WILD Red,” a 20-inch-by-24-inch oil on canvas that is also one of her favorites in this exhibit is painted in bolder colors.

“My painting style is not Realism, but this one is a bit more painterly than my others,” Martin said. “The flower is called a ‘Paul Wild’ and it’s bright and wild.”

Combining her passions for painting and peony farming, viewing “Simply Peonies” is akin to walking through a peony garden, or Martin’s fields in full bloom. With her spring and summer months spent planting, farming, harvesting, packing and shipping, Martin saves her creativity for the fall and the long months of Alaska’s winter.

“Having a peony farm here in Homer is a lot of work and a lot of fun,” she said. “The fun part is being surrounded by the blooming flowers throughout harvest, whether it’s a bucket of misfit flowers in the packhouse, vase testing them in the house or them blooming in the field. Their blooms are fleeting, so I photograph them when they’re in full bloom and then I paint them in the dark of winter.”

Martin has been dabbling in art since a very young age, at first working on intricate paint-by-number paint sets she got for Christmas when her family lived in Seattle, and then taking whatever art classes were offered during her elementary and junior high school years when her family lived in Anchorage. When they relocated back to Washington state for her high school years, she took more art classes and later, when she moved back to Anchorage after graduating high school, she sought out private lessons and classes taught through the college including a variety of mediums, but mostly in watercolor.

When Martin, previously Stratton, met Sean Martin, a Homer community member, she moved to Homer. In 1979, the couple started North Country Charters, a fishing charter business on the Homer Spit which they operated for 43 years, selling it in 2021 to their oldest son and two longtime friends and employees. In 1982, they bought their land on Diamond Ridge where they got married and raised their family. As the couple began to contemplate their life after retiring the charter business, they considered activities that would continue to keep them busy and engaged.

“A local friend who had started her own peony farm enticed me into the idea of starting a farm, but it took a couple of years for Sean and I to wrap our heads around the idea,” Martin said. “We already had the property and it was ideally situated for peony farming, so we decided to attend an Alaska Peony Growers Association conference to get ourselves initiated before we actually bought our peony roots.”

APGA, she said, was designed to educate existing and new growers in the fast-growing industry, so they were a wealth of information — as were all of the local and statewide farmers — and there was and continues to be a lot of cooperation between peony farms.

”We have 1.5 acres in peonies and currently have approximately 5,500 plants, having downsized from our previous 7,500 plants by removing varieties that were not productive and that we had too many of,” she said. “The goal is to make the farm more manageable with less labor. Our son is managing more of it all the time, so that helps keep us in the game.”

At the same time that Martin and her husband ran the fishing charter business, managed the peony farm and raised their sons, she continued to take art classes and worked primarily in stained glass.

“My young boys were active and I let them take over my home studio space to expand their own creative minds, and once they were more grown up, I took my studio back,” she said.

By that time, Martin had taken a variety of painting classes with a number of local artists, including Jim Buncak, coinciding with the same time that her peony farm began producing the flowers that she loved and aspired to paint, providing easy and proximal inspiration.

“Jim is primarily a portrait painter, which was completely new to me, and I liked his style, how passionate he is and how he encouraged us to paint, paint, paint,” she said.

Martin continues to explore and learn through the process of painting, taking classes as she has time, including more recently watercolors with Homer’s Jan Peyton and acrylics with local artist Asia Freeman.

“My watercolor class with Jan was a great reconnection with that medium, and I enjoyed Asia’s exploration of color and her appreciation for all levels of work,” she said. “I find painting to be very satisfying and food for my soul, and while I am not a prolific painter, once I get started, I really enjoy being in my studio and watching my paintings change and develop as I go along.

“This town has many venues for showcasing art and encouraging the journey of budding artists. I appreciate the community and the encouragement I have gotten from friends and artists that I truly admire. My paintings are bright and joyful and I hope they are enjoyed for the color and subject matter and that they make people happy.”

“Simply Peonies” is on display at Fireweed Gallery, 475 E Pioneer Avenue, through July. Find Martin’s art on Instagram, @akgerriart. Find Diamond Ridge Peonies at diamondridgepeonies.com.