As an artist, I am drawn to plants in all shapes and forms. I collect them from my own garden, my friends’ gardens, city parks, vacant fields and other wild places.
My medium of choice is plaster and earth pigments, which I use to create my botanical tablets. I press the plants into a clay slab, make a plaster cast from the impression, and then make a master mold from that. The resulting casts are made from pure white plaster, or they may incorporate multiple layers of pigmented plaster. My process is handmade and non-automated, with much trial and error before I am happy with the final composition. I appreciate the slow, deliberate nature of my work, which is influenced by a variety of artists, including the Classical motifs of Architect Robert Adam, plaster artist Peter Hone, and the originator of this bas relief technique, Rachel Dein.
My plant obsession began at a young age, thanks in part to a visit to Detroit’s, Anna Scripps Whitcomb Conservatory and a birthday gift of an aquarium that I filled with live aquatic plants collected from the lake I lived on. The work of Takashi Amano, a Japanese aquarist, has also been a strong influence on my art. His lessons on composition, which blend observation of plants in the wild with Zen gardening and ikebana flower arranging, guide every layout I create.
I tend to gravitate toward square and rectangular formats in my plaster botanicals, as they provide familiar boundaries in which to work. Through my art, I surround myself with the plants and landscapes that soothe my heart and soul. I am grateful to be part of a community of people who find comfort and inspiration in the same flowers, inflorescences, leaves, stems, and tendrils that I do.
