Way of Wildflowers

An ikebana journey into the nature of wildflowers. This work engages with the perennial cycles of life, death and regeneration in the natural world as a mediation. Inspired from meditations at Yellow Island nature preserve and approaches to Flattop Island NWR. It speaks to the contemplative space that wildflowers create together on these islands, what I experience as an immeasurable space of joy, compassion, love, and equanimity intertwined.

The cast crystal vessel emerged over many months of intuitive carving. The vessel has three separate flower forms connected in a triad that offer containment of fragile wildflowers in configurations highlighting each flower in space. The vessel rests upon a glass base printed with one of my photographs of the hundreds of white fawn lilies that flourish on these islands. The base creates a space for flowers or petals to drop into the field of lilies as a metaphor for the cycles of life.

Way of Wildflowers, crystal, lost wax kiln cast, archival photo printed on glass, 2023, 6” * 6 * 14