H E R B A R I U M

This project is no Emily Dickinson attempt, but just a juxtaposition of Sumi-e botanical contexts and allegorical titles I actually wanted to turn into poems.

There‘s no stopping now - over 350 artworks on rice paper and watercolor paper have been completed, to date, and I still haven’t started my curating process for Herbarium.

"You Kissed My Sunburnt Ankles" - ink on rice paper/d.c.thomas 2020

the Summaries meant to describe the artworks and yellow sticky Notes have become best friends in a pile I am still adding to.

It’s all a celebration.

this exhibit Stems directly from my heart and as Much as I am going to have on display, it still won’t be close to a conclusion.

Poetry is infinite.

time and space are infinite and we are incapacitated as human beings even more righteously so than the brushes I used to render the absolutes I have been struggling to reach since childhood.

note - I am not plating everything; I am not hiding everything.

the former and the latter have reached a consensus and they want to meet the world.

in this case, Herbarium is not vague to me at all. It’ll be all right if it’s too much to some or mediocre to others. I don’t really care at this point. I didn’t even when I started it.

i remain truthful to my art. to my imagination. To my pain. To the love inside of me.

i will continue to strive remaining truthful to this amalgam of poetry and visuals that seem to extend from my heartstrings and pathways in my brain in a way I can’t quite explain.

To me, Herbarium is an important collection of crinkled sumi-e paintings on rice paper, delicate to the touch, pleasing to the eye, intriguing, alluring and sometimes reassuring. some could be abstract erotic.

overall, herbarium is apt of helping one’s mind to transition into daydreaming whilst looking at it.

herbarium is also a nod to the women’s history month - March.

plants, leaves, flowers are so rich in suggesting womanhood, fertility, ancestral beauty and they strongly perpetuate life through time and space.

they fight, they feed off of the light and they bury themselves into the ground to ensure their living. they don't grasp the concept of fear.

Flowers pass into the next life through seeds I chose not to render in this exhibit. I haven’t gotten to that part yet. So much to figure out still.

Awaiting your interesting questions and comments,

d.c.