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8 × 10 in.
Dried Flowers & Botanicals in Shadow Box
Original / 1 of 1
These flower pieces started as something I did entirely for myself.
I would make myself a bouquet depending on how I was feeling, enjoy the flowers while they were alive, and when they started to die, I would hang them upside down and figure out a way to preserve them inside a shadow box.
At first, I really didn't know what I was doing.
I experimented. I dried flowers different ways. I put some in the oven and accidentally cooked the shit out of them. I figured out which flowers held their color, which ones became incredibly fragile, how to arrange them once they were dry, and how to turn something temporary into something that could last.
Eventually, I got pretty good at it.
Good enough that I was able to teach other people how to do it.
I turned the process into a resident event where people could learn how to preserve flowers themselves. What had started as this weird little thing I did alone became something I was sitting in a room teaching other people.
And I loved that.
Because suddenly the idea became bigger than my own bouquets.
Someone could preserve flowers from a person they love. They could make something for their mom, their partner, their best friend, or themselves. They could preserve flowers from a birthday, an anniversary, a first date, a goodbye, or just an ordinary Tuesday that happened to mean something.
Flowers are one of the ways we tell people how we feel without actually having to say very much.
I love you.
I'm thinking about you.
I'm proud of you.
I'm sorry.
I miss you.
These made me think of you.
The unfortunate part is that the flowers eventually die.
That's what I wanted to change.
Not by pretending they could stay alive forever, but by allowing them to become something else.
This piece represents the point where creating stopped being only about what creating could do for me. I realized that something I taught myself could become an experience I shared with somebody else.
And then they could take that idea and give it to someone else.
That's one of the things I've started to understand about making things.
You can create something for yourself and still have it become something much bigger than yourself.
The flowers don't last forever.
But what they meant to somebody can.
So preserve them. Frame them. Give them away. Pass it on.
8 × 10 in.
Dried Flowers & Botanicals in Shadow Box
Original / 1 of 1
These flower pieces started as something I did entirely for myself.
I would make myself a bouquet depending on how I was feeling, enjoy the flowers while they were alive, and when they started to die, I would hang them upside down and figure out a way to preserve them inside a shadow box.
At first, I really didn't know what I was doing.
I experimented. I dried flowers different ways. I put some in the oven and accidentally cooked the shit out of them. I figured out which flowers held their color, which ones became incredibly fragile, how to arrange them once they were dry, and how to turn something temporary into something that could last.
Eventually, I got pretty good at it.
Good enough that I was able to teach other people how to do it.
I turned the process into a resident event where people could learn how to preserve flowers themselves. What had started as this weird little thing I did alone became something I was sitting in a room teaching other people.
And I loved that.
Because suddenly the idea became bigger than my own bouquets.
Someone could preserve flowers from a person they love. They could make something for their mom, their partner, their best friend, or themselves. They could preserve flowers from a birthday, an anniversary, a first date, a goodbye, or just an ordinary Tuesday that happened to mean something.
Flowers are one of the ways we tell people how we feel without actually having to say very much.
I love you.
I'm thinking about you.
I'm proud of you.
I'm sorry.
I miss you.
These made me think of you.
The unfortunate part is that the flowers eventually die.
That's what I wanted to change.
Not by pretending they could stay alive forever, but by allowing them to become something else.
This piece represents the point where creating stopped being only about what creating could do for me. I realized that something I taught myself could become an experience I shared with somebody else.
And then they could take that idea and give it to someone else.
That's one of the things I've started to understand about making things.
You can create something for yourself and still have it become something much bigger than yourself.
The flowers don't last forever.
But what they meant to somebody can.
So preserve them. Frame them. Give them away. Pass it on.