Herbarium hortis siccus
December 2025:
With two of my handmade artist books on display in a special North Carolina Museum of Art exhibit (Then and There, Here and Now: Contemporary Visions of North Carolina) through January 16, 2026, I am working with great pleasure on projects and pieces that continue to be dear to my heart. A humbling experience. Fragility of our natural resources and preservation keep me attentive.
The pages in my book Nature Bound on display in the NC Museum of Art were printed with leaves off of trees in the NC mountains that no longer exist due to the devastation caused by Hurricane Helene in 2024. This one weather related event impacted my thinking towards the connections I make with plants with my own work.
During my time working on Four Seasons of Journal which I continue to fill I became even more interested in Botany. Since the late 1970's plants, gardening and farming had held my interest and played a role in my art making processes. I invested over ten years working on the Art and Agriculture project.
During 2025 I began visiting Herbariums throughout the Mid-Atlantic, Northeast and throughout the South learning from Curators, Interns and digital resources about the importance of herbaria.
Herbariums preserve and house collections of dried, labeled plant specimens. These collections serve as a permanent record of plant life, providing crucial data for identifying species, studying evolution and plant distribution, and understanding environmental changes like climate change and habitat loss. They are foundational to all plant science, supporting work in areas from molecular biology to agriculture
I began my own herbaria project with a focus on my own garden and dye plants. Plants that have been grown by family members, plants that connect to the history of our country. Plants with stories to tell.
This is has an incredible experience and one that will continue as I continue to visit Herbariums, read and learn from the world around me.