A Garden Is
Print Series
Ongoing / Works in Progress
I’m using natural inks I made from homegrown plants and flowers (many familial hand me downs: gram’s roses, great-gram’s iris, etc.) to stain pages from my (other) great-grandmother’s 1945-1946 garden scrapbook pages: a bulky reference guide she made with her own handwritten notes, and mostly populated with clippings from the gardening section of the Youngstown Vindicator. Organized by topic, she even made an index!
We had a family get together to sort through loads of old family history stuff together. This garden book of hers was one thing I kept. I learned then that Alice’s gardens were renowned in her day. She died when I was young, so I don’t have memories. The pages seen here have been painted with garden dyes I made from iris, lilies, roses, peonies, beets, strawberries, greens, and orchid cactus blooms. Each piece measures 12’’x12’’.
Alice’s deconstructed 1945-1947 garden diary / self-made reference guide, dyed with natural pigments from the garden.
Natural Inks
Making natural inks from homegrown plants and flowers in my garden, many which are familial hand me downs: gram’s roses, great-gram’s iris, etc. I used iris, lilies, roses, peonies, beets, strawberries, greens, and orchid cactus blooms.
Papermaking
After making the natural inks from the flowers in the garden, I was left with the boiled petal pulps which I used here for handmade papermaking.
