While searching for a way to visually narrate some of the most important botanicals known to humankind, inspiration germinated while reading a poem by Pablo Neruda, Ode to the Onion.  Within this poem, I felt a deep sense of genuine communion and vivid exhilaration.  

 

This work has its intentions set in both tradition as well as progression.  While conducting in-depth experiments of plant dyes and natural mordants, I discovered a method of using strong concentrations of the dyes as a medium for water color painting.  By first treating the paper in the way one would a cloth for dying, I was ecstatic to discover the variability and brilliance of the dyes reaction to paper. 

 

I approach these paintings much like a textile artist, with the inclusion of hand stitched pineapple and bamboo threads, woodblock stamps printed with thickened dyes and references to ethnographic textiles.  By combining compositions of loosely accurate illustrations of dye plants in conjunction with modern design approaches, and painted almost completely with plant dyes but with traces of digital media, it is my goal to honor and refresh the near lost art and medium of natural dyeing and the plants from which they come.

 

While using botanical infusions in a way that demonstrates their versatility, these drawings compliment the exquisite tales of the plants' worldly highlights.  It is my intention that these paintings, odes themselves, bring us closer to our changing relationship with the natural world.