Plant fiction

The COVID-19 pandemic led me to a new way of making images. Staying safe at home, I began to photograph plant material paying close attention to how it changes over time. What a revelation! Then a good friend suggested I look into the Japanese philosophy known as wabi-sabi. 

A wabi-sabi core tenet calls on one to ‘appreciate the beauty of all things, especially the great beauty that hides beneath the surface of what seems to be broken.’ With so much broken in the pandemic-world, I found plants and their parts, leaves, stems, and flowers, were capable of showing off their own unique beauty.  

Adding elements I inherited from my father, his stick pins, cuff links, a Valentine’s Day card, adds a complementary layer. Losing him to polio when I was two years old reminds me to think about those tens of thousands of children who have lost their close relatives, often a mother or father, or both. 

Beauty can be found in the broken. It just takes time.