ARTIST STATEMENT

In other cultures and times, people understood the importance of flowers - we wouldn’t have evolved without them and would starve if they disappeared. Flowers were essential to domestic life, bringing beauty but also improving the air since the ancient Egyptians.  

In the U.S., the aerosol air freshener was invented in 1948 and flowers and plants disappeared from our homes.  Instead, we “Say It With Flowers” and it is clear who is doing the talking and who is listening.  Flowers have been feminized and thus trivialized.

Even though the armatures are steel, it was a deliberate choice to make the pieces using materials and techniques that are also often dismissed as feminine.  And although some are 9 feet tall, everything disassembles into parts I can carry so I’m not dependent on any arms stronger than my own. The fabric is weather proof making the work suitable for outdoor installation.

I start with photos of home grown flowers and scale them up roughly 12 times life size to make obvious the incredible diversity of form, structure and color to the viewer who may have never noticed the proverbial “lilies of the field.