Movement in Plants
The chief object of the present work is to describe and connect together
several large classes of movement common to almost all plants.
— Charles Darwin, The Power of Movement in Plants
Herbaria: locus
2007
Color intaglio / embossing
suite of 12
22 x 30 inches
Printed in collaboration with Grafikwerkstatt Dresden
The 3 black botanical images represent plants in my former garden in Richmond, Virginia; a flattened-out manner referencing herbarium specimens made after a move to Dresden, Germany.
The plates once developed were given to the intaglio printer at Grafikwerkstatt Dresden for him to initiate 3 sets of 12 prints. The placement of the images are different in each suite of 12 because he agreed to randomly change the position of the plates for each set. The prints then came back to my studio in Dresden where I worked into the arrangements he’d started, developing the final compositions by using the color-printed plates and embossing – also prepared in Dresden. They are self-quoting fragments of images from past work over an 18 year period.
At the time, I was looking for a way to invite Dresden into my work. Handing over the botanical plates to another printer and relinquishing control over their positioning was analogous to yielding a degree of control over my personal circumstances as
a result of moving to Germany in the summer of 2006; a literal way of letting Dresden have a hand in the development.
Working with the given aspects of these early compositions, and using a record of images from previous work to resolve them, was parallel to the process of adaptation, and of finding a sense of self in an unfamiliar environment and conditions not fully of one’s own making.
Shape Note Geography
2009
Color intaglio / varnish roll
suite of 8
12 x 12 inches
‘Shape notes’ are music notations designed to facilitate congregational singing, they link a note of the musical scale with a shape and a syllable, and this association can be used as an aid to reading music. Shape note singing has a long heritage in the southern region of the United States, and the tradition comes from colonial “singing schools” whose purpose was to teach beginners to sing. There are no rehearsals; the singers sit in a square formation, all facing inwards singing into the square.
I worked with a simple contour-line map of Virginia and one of Saxony to develop these compositions. Saxony is geographically a great deal smaller than Virginia;
I enlarged the map so that they would be in proportion to one another. Each composition is made of one line from the contour of Virginia and one from the contour of Saxony. The positive / negative aspect of the compositions makes the space between the lines look like an open space between two masses, much like bodies of water between continents. But simultaneously, the space between the lines can also be seen as a solid shape formed by line fragments of the two maps.
Florilegium
2008/09
Collage on paper with watercolor, beeswax, intaglio ink
suite of 8 drawings
10 x 11 inches & 10 x 13 inches
A Florilegium is a botanical book form that came into use early
in the 17th century. Patrons for some florilegia were owners of great private gardens who wanted a permanent record of the
rare plants they had assembled.
The term Florilegium is formed from the Latin flos (flower) and legere (to gather) and means quite plainly a gathering of flowers, or collection of fine extracts from the body of a larger work.
In this suite I have developed each image from a composition in the Shape Note Geography suite using the negative space of two map lines to create a flora of an invented geographical place of betweenness.
Fossili: Motus
2007
Intaglio / embossing / watercolor
suite of 12
12 x 12 inches
Botanical gardens are institutions holding documented collections of living plants for the purposes of scientific research, conservation, display and education. Generally the collections include plants from all over the world.
There is a kind of metaphor at work here of a botanical garden as a place full of foreigners.
Fossils are preserved remains of plants or animals; originally meaning any distinctive object that has been dug up, (‘having been dug up’ from Latin fossus). Not unlike Herbaria, they are also a kind of record keeping – nature’s record of earlier life buried in rock.
In the Fossili: motus suite there are 6 with printed shapes and 6 embossed shapes that are derived from the map of the planting beds at the Dresden Botanical Garden; the plant images are the same as those used in the Herbaria: locus series.
Places, Days, Weather
2008
Color intaglio
suite of 10
10 x 12 inches
The systematic approach to this series combines several components each with an assigned role that together convey a sense of transitory presence. The fragments of maps, flowers and butterfly plates were randomly cut into pieces.
Maps: Virginia and Saxony of equal proportion were etched into a single copper plate, and chopped into 10 pieces one for each day of the week in each place.
State flowers: Every state in the US has state symbols of significance: state flowers, trees, birds and other animals. The flowering dogwood (Cornus florida) is the state flower and tree of Virginia. I selected the linden (Tilia)- being of great mythological significance in Germany as a symbol of truth, justice and peace- to serve here as ‘state flower and tree’ of Saxony.
Rivers: The James River of Virginia runs through the capital city of Richmond (I moved from) and nearly across the width of the state; the Elbe River runs through the capital city of Dresden (I moved to) and through the state of Saxony.
Butterflies: A symbol of migration and movement.
Weather: I mixed colors of printing ink for various weather conditions: warm, cold, windy, sunny, cloudy, rainy, then made notes about the weather conditions in each city on a particular day in one consecutive week in Dresden and Richmond. The color combinations in each print are determined by the weather condition in each city on the given day. The prints are pairs; they note the weather in two places on the same day.