Diving Dahlias
I grew up in Maine surrounded by gardens with vegetables, herbs, and flowers of every color, size, and shape. My family ate fresh vegetables most nights during the summer, and I helped my mother can and freeze them for winter meals. I spent my summers on Jesse Pond at the foot of Day Mountain swimming and fishing; during the winter we lived on the coast where I could see the tides rolling in and out of Casco Bay from my bedroom window. The rhythms of water and wind set a natural metronome for each season, from planting to harvest, entering and exiting with its fleeting light.
Diving Dahlias
is a continuation of my artwork with yellow tulips (for the Yellow Tulip Project) reflecting on my lived experience of growing flowers, the changing seasons, shifting winds, water immersion, and my creativity. The embodied creative process is therapeutic as I process the world around me from my current perspective layered with my childhood memories. The images on paper are photographs taken underwater of photos of dahlias I grew printed on silk. Taking pictures in the water brought me back to childhood–hours of drifting in the sea, under a bright blue sky and hot sun. I smile now, remembering the pure joy of it all, like those long summer days in Maine. Although the images are printed on paper, they still feel like they are drifting and swaying. The seawater and filtered light enhanced the beauty of the dahlias, which I didn’t think was possible because they were already so wildly beautiful. They appear to be breathing, reminiscent of my experience during the process, as I inhaled deeply and exhaled, dipping in and out of the waves.
