““The richness I achieve comes from nature, the source of my inspiration.” - Claude Monet

I have always found it fascinating that for the last 30 years of his life, Claude Monet painted the beauty he found in his backyard garden. Having the inspiring magic of nature at one’s doorstep has long been a goal and recently, after moving out of New York City, I was able to follow in Monet’s footsteps and create my backyard wildflower meadow. I spent the summer photographing the life and growth I witnessed there - bees to butterflies, early blooms to decay. I used a photographic process called Cyanotype which was popular in the mid 19th century when Monet was painting. I added watercolor paints to this process, then made impressions of the flowers through a contact printer and sunlight. Like magic water would wash away the blue color of the Cyanotype where it had been blocked from the sun, exposing watercolor beneath the wildflower shapes. Like all creative experiments, these combined, layered processes led to mishaps and unexpected beauties.
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