Petals Like a River 01 and 02, from the Ritual Series, 2024, 10.25 x 15 inches (12.25 x 23 inches with hanger), Expired cyanotype, fuchsia petals, Yamamotoyama Genmaicha tea sleeves, gilding paint, acrylic medium, glue, string, clips, monofilament, nails, & paper
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Petals Like a River 01, from the Ritual Series, 2024, 12 x 12 inches (12.25 x 23 inches with hanger), Expired cyanotype, fuchsia petals, Yamamotoyama Genmaicha tea sleeves, gilding paint, acrylic medium, glue, string, clips, monofilament, nails, & paper
Petals Like a River transforms recycled materials into beautiful artworks to foster an appreciation for the life and world we have and experience regardless of inherent imperfections and shows how artists can find ways to make art while reducing our toll on the planet. Instead of finding fault or waste, we can choose to elevate and create things that live on.
During the pandemic, when supply chains were interrupted, time was gained for some, and anything could be scarce, many people shifted towards growing and harvesting as well as saving and collecting. It was a good opportunity to re-focus on recycled materials as I had long been interested in using scraps from past processes in new works, contemplated how to reduce my footprint, and in the past had created some non-traditional and experimental works from humble materials.
During this time, things one did in one’s daily life, that were never clearly seen before, revealed themselves. Those personal proclivities, which many finally had time to savor—some clung to in a grasp for “normalcy” or a feeling of assurance that everything would be okay—became more apparent as ritual and markers of time passing, but also reflective of wasteful consumption. For myself, hectic mornings meant I had been using pre-made tea bags, a practice replaced with loose-leaf now. Rather than they end up in a landfill, I realized they could be collected to be used in the future.
Many years later, I constructed tea sleeve substrates. The tea sleeves’ rips and missing sections were filled with old, gold gilding paint, both as part meditation, healing, and a nod to wabi-sabi: defects can be appreciated, and a mark of age or use can express the unique imprint of experience.
Next, expired cyanotype solution was applied and exposed to the sun. Then, garden-harvested and crushed fuchsia petals were glued to the surface. As if floating on a river, the petals follow an organic path by overlapping the white patches in the mottled cyanotype underneath.
In their final form, one might see blue shapes that are evocative of a mountain or waterfall peeking out from falling or floating petals as if these works return the materials to landscape, whilst showing life can spring anew from death.