Friday, July 10th, 2009
summer is…
The women over at Echoes are focusing on the phrase summer is…. this summer and they’ve invited me to add something to their collaborative journal today that expresses what summer is to me.
For me summer always invokes images of the farm fields surrounding the small Wisconsin town where I grew up. I was a town girl, and farm life seemed foreign and exciting. We would drive the county roads and I loved the lush patchwork of crops in vibrant golds and greens. In college I discovered the aerial photographs of Alex Maclean and was especially drawn to his field photographs, which not only reminded me of the those fields from my childhood but also let me experience them in a completely new way.
Now I live in a city, and while summer isn’t my favorite season, there are a few things I look forward to in the summer. One of those is the Minnesota State Fair, and one of my favorite things to do there is to go see the seed art (they call it crop art). Amazingly detailed scenes all made out of seeds. Again the seed art makes me think of those fields of my youth but I like seeing the seeds from those fields presented in a new way.
For my contribution I gathered plants and seeds from my yard, to develop a field that evokes for me both the past and the present while trying to maintain a balance between object/field.
Thanks for the invitation girls, I really enjoyed this!
on Friday, July 10th, 2009 at 9:33 am:
Your Field is very beautiful, and your thoughts are lovely to read- thank you for showing and sharing!
Annamaria
on Friday, July 10th, 2009 at 9:37 am:
I love the nod to a quilt of green fields, just like what I see from an airplane when flying over the midwest. Did you photograph them in the piece, or is each the real thing?
on Friday, July 10th, 2009 at 10:20 am:
I’m curious about Blair’s question too. Are they laid out like this or are they cropped and assembled digitally? Either way, I am amazed at this and we are so thrilled you contributed. You give us new things to think about! Thank you Martha.
on Friday, July 10th, 2009 at 10:20 am:
Actually now looking at your detail image it appears you may have cut the leaves and arranged them into a grid?
on Friday, July 10th, 2009 at 10:23 am:
thank you annamaria:)
blair and heather -the leaves/seeds are collaged on to the paper. I glued them on and then cut them on the grid afterwards, peeling away the parts I didn’t want.
does that make sense?
if you look at the image bigger in flickr you can see it.
on Friday, July 10th, 2009 at 11:04 am:
i just love your field project. it’s so beautiful. i have been trying to think of some way to capture the essence of the meadows here–thinking of pressing all varieties and making a book or working on drawings…this definitely provides me with more inspiration. happy summer martha. xo
on Friday, July 10th, 2009 at 11:22 am:
thanks for sharing your process, martha. i always like hearing how someone is inspired and then follows that inspiration. it’s absolutely wonderful.
on Friday, July 10th, 2009 at 3:49 pm:
i love how you made the patchwork of green textures and the way they’re assembled in the box, too. it’s also so nice to learn about about your thoughts on summer. have a nice weekend.
on Saturday, July 11th, 2009 at 4:46 pm:
yes, that makes sense martha, thanks!
on Saturday, July 11th, 2009 at 11:36 pm:
Love it. I’ve spent the last 2 days driving through WI & IL and have one more day to go. Although summer isn’t my favorite either, I could gaze at the slightly rolling fields of corn & soybean for hours. There’s something very peaceful about it.
on Monday, July 13th, 2009 at 8:28 am:
pretty
i’ve just come back from a trip to champagne. i enjoyed the sight of wheatfields on the way: different hues of gold and green, cropped wheat leaving way to either earth or being burnt by the sun or whatever’s left mingling with green long herbs.
then it was the vinyards of champagne.
nature is truely amazing, an orderly chaos much too big, it doesn’t need us, at the most we bug it, LOL.
on Tuesday, July 14th, 2009 at 8:15 am:
gorgeous, martha!
on Tuesday, July 14th, 2009 at 11:42 am:
thank you all!
on Thursday, July 16th, 2009 at 11:05 am:
Oh my, this is awesome! I wish I could feel this collage.
on Monday, August 3rd, 2009 at 7:59 am:
[…] remember being very inspired by Martha’s summer is contribution a few weeks ago, and finally clicked over to Alex MacLean’s photographic work. […]
on Monday, September 7th, 2009 at 11:42 am:
i am so happy to revisit this today. i loved it on flickr so much, and reading your thoughts here is such an inspiration. i love the idea of the patchwork of leaves and seeds… seeing the fields where e’s parents live often reminds me of a textural quilt.
xo