From Dirty Dirt Doth Flowers Grow

2015, photos, string, thread, money, hobby grass, papers, ink, holes, gouache, wool, felt, lace, approx. 30 inches around.

I am a collector of special papers.  For years I have punched a lot of holes and dots with my very fancy Japanese hole punch.   Each tiny dot carries with it the significance and history of its host, the paper.   I have used a lot of those special dots in different projects. One project is a collection of flowers in a variety of rainbow colors. In this artwork, I have arranged the flowers in a kind of rainbow clock. From a distance it is like a dandelion clock with a twist.  The flowers grow out of photos of trees and shrubbery taken at my grandparent’s house over 20 years ago.  The very inside of the artwork was going to be a vegetable garden made of aubergine, onion, and beetroot paper mounted on red felt.  Unfortunately, it looked terrible in the middle, so I buried it (turned it backwards). Now the rejected dirt is facing forwards and in the middle. No one wants to see the dirt, but let’s not underestimate the beauty of great soil. It is everything.  This is a very unrealistic arrangement of flowers, but if I were a very clever gardener, I would have a rainbow of flowers in my garden.