The Evolution Continues

On a recent May morning, Kelly Leahy Radding sat on the deck of her rural Connecticut home and watched the birds flying by overhead. The 20 acres that she and her husband Greg live on is located half an hour southeast of Hartford and is surrounded by woods that Radding explores almost daily.

It’s also on the migratory path of the birds that return to the East Coast each spring. “I sat for two hours, just watching and listening to the birds,” Radding says. “I think I counted around 40 species that morning alone.”

Birds are central to Radding’s work. So are plants, trees, and critters of all kinds that she fell in love with as a child exploring the forest that abutted her family’s home in Connecticut. “I spent my childhood in the woods,” she says. “I would ride my horse for hours on the forest trails and in the nearby apple orchards, finding birds and animals everywhere.”

Even now, after celebrating her 65th birthday earlier this year, those exploits continue. Radding travels frequently to explore new areas and capture new ideas for her paintings. In late April, she was in Virginia for a three-week residency at the Oak Spring Garden Foundation, where she hiked and spent time listening to birds, watching wildlife, and studying plants. She returned home with dried leaves and flowers, as well as hundreds of photos and mental images just waiting to become paintings.

Read the full article in the September/October 2026 issue.