Ms. Marino is known for many things: illustrator, storybook writer, designer, as well as an artist. While she has many talents, it is her flower portraits that give me pause, they are soft, sophisticated, realistic and tenderly executed. Many of her flower portraits remind me of the famous floral artist of the 1970s, now deceased, Lowell Blair Nesbitt, whom accomplished over-sized singular flower(s) on canvas and in screen prints. Nesbitt's flowers were widely collected and are included in numerous museum collections. He was frequently described and grouped with the photo realists. Unlike Nesbitt, Marino works with gouache that she frequently washes out to almost watercolor consistency. Yet, the both of them claim that they are not interested in capturing the botanical/scientific details of a flower. Nesbitt's flowers captured the entire canvas and he used a flat colored background. Likewise, Marino's flowers capture the entire space of her artworks, the diff