STATEMENT
Revival (working title, ongoing series)
Famous for her spectacular perennial gardens, my mother would preserve her flowers by drying them and creating gorgeous, colorful, large arrangements. Just before her death, she gave me one that found a home in my living room. Although its colors faded over time, I wasn't ready to part with it for several years, until it became a ghost of itself, sad and pale. But rather than throwing it away, I realized there was potential for the individual flowers — brittle but still held together with her glue and wires — to be revived by my own creative process. In what has become a collaboration with my deceased mother, I reuse elements of her arrangements (and contribute my own), twisting wire, glueing and painting petals and stems to build little sculptures. The final product is a celebration of our working together, a photographic portrait of the fresh arrangement.