Every year Roanoke sculptor Betty Branch opens the doors of her working studio on Warehouse Row (Norfolk Avenue downtown) for a few days in December, allowing art patrons to take a peek inside. She also turns it into a family affair, with her children (Sally, Polly, Bonnie, Patrick and Katey) on hand to show off some of their art (music in Katey’s case) as well.
On hand for the first time in several years was Bonnie Branch, who now lives in the San Francisco Bay area. Branch moved to the west coast to pursue ballroom dancing, in hopes of teaching it, but stress fractures brought on by too many moves in high heels have shelved that plan for now.
She also competed for a while. “That took up a lot of time and energy, but it was great. I was dancing 25 hours a week.” The hiatus has allowed Branch to pursue another passion – photography – and the open house show exhibited some of her newer work, a series of pictures that depict flowers in fine detail. “The good side of that injury – that challenge – is that I went out and started photographing again, which I had not done since I had been in California.”
Branch visited art galleries and museums in the Bay Area for inspiration, then went out “taking pictures of things that I thought were beautiful.” Her latest series of flower photographs were inspired by her love of nature. In much of her work, be it flowers, trees or the human body, “I see something a little bit more organic that could be possibly something else. It could be an underwater creature . . . or something in the desert. It could be fabric, it could be paper. That really intrigues me.”
Her flower photos “were all taken outside in nature. The sun was just in the right place.” Some are reminiscent perhaps of the legendary Georgia O’Keefe.
“Sometimes you get an idea in your head and you just can’t shake it loose. You want to see how far you can take it,” said Branch, who has also taken photographs in cemeteries: “It’s whatever in the moment [that] gets me. Then I’ll go with it.” Branch said her goal is to capture what she sees through the camera lens, hoping that “someone else sees it too.”
Betty Branch started the open houses “many years ago,” said her daughter, and began inviting the children to exhibit with her (on the second floor of the warehouse studio) in the late ‘90’s. “She had such a drive, and a need to create,” noted Bonnie Branch about the family matriarch.
“She couldn’t have survived without … making things with her hands. She didn’t necessarily preach about it, but when you have that kind of role modeling you can’t help but at least try.” The Branch children have done more than explore; they are all accomplished artists in their own right, as the hundreds who came to the open house reception would attest.
Besides, the annual open house is also a family reunion. “It’s amazing to me and I’m very proud of my family,” said Bonnie Branch. “It’s so cool to see what everyone has been working on.”
