from the garden

Scanned Herbs and Plants

My natural curiosity and wonder with plants in my garden were the source of inspiration for this work. The cucumber plant is the first of many collaborative experiments that I have brought inside my studio to place on the scanner bed. As I continued to see and collect many other plants, flowers, and herbs, I began to pay attention to so many tiny moments amidst the greater drama in the garden. Some I have plucked at the height of their radiant splendor, others as they decay and disintegrate, beautiful in their decline, and still others, the seed heads forming and drying, their final transformation, bringing the hope and promise for the next cycle of seasons.

In the line of a long tradition of preserving botanical specimens, it is my hope that each of these photographs honors the integrity of the plant. The digitally derived patina and artifacts in the pictures are idiosyncratic, playful, and intended to embellish and to resonate with the spirit of the subject.

As a gardener, herbalist, and photographer, I am curious and excited by all I continue to glean as I pay attention in these worlds. In sharing the fragile beauty of these plants, I am fascinated by the surprising serendipity found in creating the photographs.