Summers Upstate

2024, Marigold, iron, citric acid, and tannins screen-printed on cotton gauze 

Tall green grass, hummingbirds flitting around, while my cousins and I giggled in the back of the old yellow World War II jeep my grandfather fixed up. We’d flop around, clinging to the roll bar, while my dad would take us on “crazy jeep rides'' through the woods and the meadow. We'd trundle through thousands of flowers; one of the most prevalent was Queen Anne's lace. I was always fascinated by its strange shape and weird little petals.  

 This piece honors those silly summer nights with my family. The cotton gauze fabric helps invoke the nostalgia I felt while making it. It's dyed with marigold and dipped in iron to create a mossy green, and citric acid creates the lacy, cloudy effect of Queen Ann's lace. The print paste was a mixture of Longwood, tannic acid, and iron. 

The pattern shows the different stages of the flower opening, from a strange bulbous bunch of stems to a large and floaty cloud. Hand printing makes each flower unique and different, like the actual flower itself.