Everything about the Pacific North West, including my love for the place, is big. Perhaps that is why my love took hold. The simple magic of feeling small. The Gunnera, its emblem. Grandiose, prehistoric, botanical gluttony. This series is an ode to that big time love. Getting mesmerized, enchanted, perhaps even swallowed whole as I fall forever in love.
What is a wreath? An emblem of home, of hearth, of merriment. A circle; the primordial shape. A portal to the woods, to the over-grown alleys, to my mother-in-law’s garden. Wreaths are for the meanderers, who quicken at life gone-to-seed. Wreaths are for those that don’t see bracken as browned and brittle but it’s dried curves as the meridian of their final dance. Wreaths are a final dance. I have been weaving bits of botanicals together this season in this form almost daily. I let the materials tell me how they want to move and let them hold themselves together. I have shed wire, glue, and rings in this work. A reminder that all we ever need is our natural world…
When you tread lightly off the path, as a dainty footed deer, but when you know you are all donkey. And the wild flowers you bowed down to just moments before --the Lupin you cupped in your hands-- now bow for you. You know you are not worthy. Nobody is, but maybe the dear. Yet you ache to be that kid again. The one that swings his legs before him, rather than lifting his knees. You don't remember the last time you stubbed your toe and think you might miss it. You want to rattle down this hillside like the toboggan you should have bailed from you want to fall in love with gravity again, but your notch in the door way is too far from the floor. A painful romance however deep. You don't want to have to worry your weight and the weight of the world. But you know now... that you do not tread lightly.
