Love notes to my garden

My garden is the source of inspiration for much of my work, sharing with me her bounty of botanical treasures for eco-printing, gelatin plate monoprinting and cyanotype.

I can not put into words the joy she gives me not only with the sharing of her own creations to work with, but in her space and majesty and sheer presence. It isn’t a dense garden, nor manicured or planned, or one needing a lot of maintenance. For the most part she looks after herself. And I am grateful for that. But she is bountiful. For me. And for students in my workshops.

step
into a space
of calm and quiet
and noise and chatter
and busy and living
critters and creatures
nesting and hunting
living
and
doing what they do
adapted
settled
struggling
nestled
in their space
and home
in my garden
our garden
around the trees
and shrubs
and weeds
affording me
moments
of escape
and respite

let me wander
my garden
space
and find
quite

I have laid down roots all of my own
Surrounded by the roots of trees in my garden
These roots grow deeper and stronger as time
allows them to intertwine with the established
roots holding their own place and space and life.

Colophon

COVER – eco-printed paper cut to size to make a simple warp-around cover. The ribbon that closes the book has been thread between the cover and folded content pages.

CONTENT – using a large gelatin plate monoprint I created a single-sheet zine type structure. I then stitched the open ends of the folded structure to create pockets to hold my love notes.  have already placed some notes into the book structure, and will continue to add them over time.

Still in progress, but photos at this stage were taken in November 2020.

Below is a short video stepping outside my studio and into my back yard. I am fortunate to space around me, and there is as much space at the front of the house as there is in the back (minus the big cow paddock property). The plants growing at the front are more a source of material to use in my artwork than the back, you can get sense of the space around where I work. I created this video for my online learning portal, The Studio, where I share my studio space with students in online workshops.

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