By IMKE AHLF-WIEN
Courtesy of Daphne Driskell-Coles
Many years ago, during a walk through the neighborhood, I had a lovely encounter: A man was pulling vegetables in his yard in the historic district, and when I asked whether the turnips were ready for harvest, he replied, “Yes, but I’m just going to eat the greens.” Years later, I understood that the beautiful yellow Victorian on Decatur Street, with its gorgeous porch and the garden full of trees, flowers, vegetable patches and a bottle tree, belonged to Hyattsville’s most famous resident, David Driskell. And I had chatted him up, about turnips, of all things.
But the deeper I dug, the more sense it made. Driskell wasn’t only a brilliant artist, curator and educator, he was also a passionate gardener. Gloria Felix-Thompson, president of Hyattsville’s Preservation Association, fondly remembers talking to him about gardening, and about flowers in particular.
Art and nature are far from being antipodes in the life and work of David Driskell. Nature appears in his work in many ways: His early paintings include still lifes featuring fruits and flowers, and he loved to paint the pine trees that he could see from his studio at his summer residence in Falmouth, Maine. He kept many sketchbooks of his travels and everyday life, one of them titled The Garden Book at Maryland and Maine, in which he drew the plants and ponds in his gardens and wrote about their development. He also collected natural and salvaged secondhand materials that he often used to make garden ornaments, such as a scarecrow for his garden in Maine, according to the book David C. Driskell: Artist and Scholar by Julie L. McGee.
But Driskell considered gardening itself an artform. In the Getty Trust Oral History Project’s David C. Driskell: Life Among The Pines, conducted by Bridget Cooks and Amanda Tewe, he likened gardening to painting: “It’s a part of the process of this creative spirit that I feel so close to.” He added, “I often go to the garden before I go to the studio.” Driskell considered gardening to be creative, as well as useful and functional. He said he enjoyed seeing the seeds come through the ground and become “this big flourishing beautiful leaf that you’re going to want to consume.”
While Driskell kept a small vegetable patch and several fruit and walnut trees in his yard in Hyattsville, he actually grew most of his produce in Maine: peaches, pears, apples and plums, as well as plenty of vegetables. The Driskells canned some of that produce there and brought it back to Hyattsville to eat throughout the year, according to Life Among The Pines.
Driskell’s wife, Thelma, and his younger daughter, Daphne Driskell-Coles, who both live in Hyattsville, had many stories to tell about this aspect of his legacy: David loved to entertain guests around the dinner table, with food prepared from fresh garden produce. While Thelma did most of the everyday cooking, David often helped with the preparations, and his favorite dish, Geechee Gumbo, was one that he always cooked himself (it was featured in the magazine Homes of Color in 2003). During meals, he even enjoyed assembling the food on his plate according to their colors — like on a painter’s palette, recalls his daughter.
The vegetable patches and pond in his Hyattsville yard are gone now, but the fruit and nut trees still grow strong. After Driskell passed away in April 2020, his family planted a pine tree in his yard — a memorial tree — just as Driskell himself planted many trees throughout his life in remembrance of family members and friends, explains his daughter.
How can Hyattsville residents honor the memory of David Driskell? Maybe we could evoke his spirit by tending to our gardens, cooking a meal from scratch, gathering family and friends around the dining room table. Or we could prepare a dish that he would have enjoyed and talked about many, many years ago, prepared with produce fresh from the garden.
Turnip greens, Driskell-style
Rich in calcium, iron, magnesium and potassium, as well as several vitamins, turnip greens are available in fall and winter at select grocery stores and farmers markets. You can also use collard greens for this recipe. Thelma Driskell likes to keep it simple: Just simmer the greens with flavorful smoked turkey legs or wings and a dash of salt and pepper. Serve with homemade cornbread on the side.
Ingredients:
- 2 smoked turkey legs or wings, or one of each
- 2 quarts filtered water
- 2 bunches of turnip greens, well rinsed and chopped
- Salt and pepper to taste
Directions:
In a large stock pot, place the turkey pieces into the water, and bring it to a boil. Let the water simmer over low heat for about 2 hours or until the turkey meat is tender and separates easily. Remove the turkey from the pot and add the greens. Gently stir while the greens cook down. Remove the skin and bones from the turkey, shred the meat and add it back to the pot. Cook for another 45 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add salt and pepper as needed.
Imke Ahlf-Wien is a nutrition educator with a passion for fresh, locally procured foods.
