Our Story

Hello, I’m Maria Villegas-Heaney, the artist behind Beautiful Botanicals.

I have the pleasure of preserving my garden’s gifts through plaster-cast artwork and am grateful to share my art with you. Every piece is one-of-a-kind and captures the elegance, fine details, and whimsy of flowers, buds, branches, and vegetables.

I fall in love with the process of creating each and every day—taking my hands from sun-warmed soil to pressing clay, plucking petals, pouring plaster, painting, and then back again. The past few years I’ve explored different types of clay, plaster, and painting techniques that have brought me to the art I share with you today.

I’m inspired by spring mornings with daffodils and snowdrops bobbing their heads to the music of songbirds, autumnal mornings with the crunching and rustling of leaves underfoot, and the graceful dance of a falling leaf as it drifts to the ground. My hope is that my artwork celebrates these moments in time and ignites a curiosity amongst its viewers that helps us all commemorate the natural beauty that surrounds us.

What started as purely joy-filled and therapeutic eventually became piles of artwork cascading from my studio into my dining room. Eventually, my son, Morgan, convinced me to share them with the world. And here we are.

My love of nature started at a young age—climbing trees, puddle-jumping, catching toads, riding horses, and doing all the things children like to do. I spent many hours breathing in the scents and falling in love with the colors and textures of my mother’s garden—that in a way—the work that I do feels almost inevitable.

I now cherish my own backyard garden oasis that inspires and invites me to create—whether it’s my botanical artwork or scratch-made culinary delights. The majority of my artwork is created using clippings from my personal garden or from found beauty during trail walks or bike rides with my youngest son, Ben and husband, Neil.