Echinacea purpurea (Series Seed Heads)

Seed heads are a miraculous story of life and death. The ingredients of next season's life are contained within the dried and seemingly dead part of the plant, which is therefore dead and alive at the same time.

Seed heads are beautiful autumn and winter displays, which allow us to embrace the seasonality of gardens. By leaving seed heads and other dead matter in the garden over the winter we can provide shelter and food for the wildlife. What is good for the wildlife helps the survival of our planet. This is particularly important in our times of climate crisis.

For this series I was inspired by the delicate and beautifully detailed hand painted illustrations in old botanical and horticultural books. I harvested all the seed heads depicted in this series from plants in my own garden.

Prints are produced in-house by myself on Awagami Kozo Thick White paper. Despite its name, at a weight of 110gsm this is not a thick paper for Western understanding. This paper still retains some slight, graceful translucency if backlit. It is an excellent example of the delicate-yet-strong paradox. Whilst in the West we think that only thick paper is good paper, it is in fact the techniques for making thin papers that show the real skills of the papermaker. This paper is archival quality (ph neutral).

Prints ship in a box and are unframed. The dimensions quoted are the size of the paper. There is a white margin around the actual image.