Seedlings (2023)
Even before becoming a mother, I have long felt connected to the multifaceted metaphor, and endless imagery, of gardening. Through this lens ideas can take root, sprout, and blossom. They can overgrow, be tamed, cut back, and wither. Cycles of rebirth and hope, of changing seasons, hard work and happenstance. Growth happens under impossible, concrete circumstances and ideal, heat lamp conditions alike.
From the first small kick of my ribs, I have been hyperaware of my role as a mother. Be the environment. Be the soil, the soft landing, the sun and the rain, the armor and the reflection. Hold lightly your hopes and dreams for your children. Cultivate, like a gardener, the environment for them to chase and realize their own. In the work, household artifacts are woven, tied, and knotted together. Drawings, wrapping paper, grocery lists, and to dos are roughly collaged and worked back into with crayons, paint, and pencil, active mark marking. Out of the collaged masses sprout seedlings, new and undefined. Confident, eager, and fragile all the same. The fledgling, unfinished leaves are as much myself as they are my children, as they are any of us, stretching toward the sun because of, sometimes in spite of, our gardeners.
