This eco-feminist collaboration with artist Amanda Marchand re-works Emily Dickinson’s herbarium (botanical sampler) via Anthotypes, a plant-based process invented during Dickinson’s era just as photography was being born. During her life Dickinson was not famous for her poetry, but for her green thumb. Our project re-makes her 66 herbarium pages with plant pigments from 66 species that we grew and harvested in our own gardens - and that Dickinson grew, among the 400+ herbarium species. We partnered with scientists Kyra Krakos and Peter Grima to expand upon Emily’s flower sampler. The color schemas are our own 21st-Century herbarium, a sumptuous study of color, telling plant stories through Dickinson’s world of flowers, a portal between the past and present.
Image 1-3 & 17: PhotoFairs NYC with RWFA
Image 3: Herbarium Plate 4, Marigold
Image 4: Herbarium Plate 8, Petunia
Image 5: Herbarium Plate 12, Red Salvia
Image 6: Herbarium Plate 9, Poppy
Image 8: Herbarium Plate 42, Pokeweed
Image 9: The earthen door (earth tones)
Image 10: Could I - then - shut the Door (Dickinson greenhouse)
Image 11: The only ghost I ever saw (Ghost Plant)
Image 12: A transport one cannot contain (invasive species)
Image 13: Flowers - Well - if anybody (anthotype color wheel)
Image 14: This was in the white of the year (Dickinson in white)
Images 15 & 16: “This Earthen Door,” Peter and Stephen Sachs Museum, Missouri Botanical Gardens
Praise for THIS EARTHEN DOOR: The work launched at PHOTOFAIRS NYC, Sept 2023. PHOTOFAIR founder, Scott Grey, stated in ArtNEWS that it was an “unbelievable beautiful” example of the scope of photography on display at the fair. “It’s absolutely mind blowing,” he said. “When you scratch the surface, and you understand how that was made and how it was produced and the thinking behind it, and the context behind it and the concept, these artists are incredible.”
The video explains the experimental Anthotype process.
This Earthen Door video shows the plant-based “anthotype” process we use to make our images. Anthotypes are a sustainable, eco-friendly way to leave the darkroom behind and make photographs.
