Katherine
Boyer

The act of gardening, slowly, attentively, carefully, is the basis of Katherine Boyer’s work Cyan Blue Eclipse. The work was made through learning processes that demand relinquishing control, welcoming failure, and being guided by collaboration with natural forces. The cyanotypes, which show stenciled plant motifs fixed by sunlight on pieces of cotton, present plants in a way that exhibits simultaneously all that they can be—leaves, flowers, and seeds. Here, Boyer is intertwining the different phases of growth—a way to depict plants that is recurrent in some beadwork traditions, which are also an important part of her practice. She undertook the project both to bring to light the lifecycle of tobacco plants, prairie rose, and dye plants such as goldenrod and dyer’s woad and to illustrate the reciprocal relationship between herself and the plants, insects, and animals around her. The structures made of lumber also bring to mind the support and mutual care woven among living beings in this learning experience, and they evoke the knowledge found in Boyer’s family.