Emily Abreu De Lima
Soil, plant-based dyes on canvas, wood
“I was first inspired to do a painting after seeing Eder Munez’s mural at the Cornell Botanic Gardens Nevin Welcome Center. For my final project I decided to do something similar, with some of the concepts we covered in this class: gourds from the trip to Gourdlandia; cattails from basket weaving class; and plant-based dyes, specifically dye from sunflower seeds. Lastly, I included the butterflies based off of butterflies that I saw and photographed at Insectapalooza.”
Ze-Wen Koh
Burrawang fruit and mihirung paringmal (Australia)
Osage orange and giant sloth (North America)
Ginkgo biloba and eosinopteryx (China)
Watercolor and pencil on paper
“My final project is paintings of plants with evolutionary anachronisms paired with animals they are thought to have co-evolved with. I chose this project because I was inspired by a webcomic (xkcd) strip describing an orchid that mimics a now extinct bee, and how “the only memory of the bee is a painting by a dying flower.” I was fascinated by this idea of plants recording their evolutionary partners through their features, and how that may relate to how plants see or interact with other members of the ecosystem. I learned a lot through this project about the relationship between these plants and animals, as well as humans. I also made my best attempt at using the native language of the region – or even the name the species had amongst the people at the time – to refer to the pairs of organisms.”
Raphael Fortuna
Resin, various plant materials
“I used pressed and non-pressed leaves, sticks, and other natural materials to create resin squares depicting different insects present in Ithaca during the fall, winter, and spring: a Monarch butterfly with some Milkweed for the fall, a group of hibernating Asian Lady Beetles for the winter, and a Greater Anglewing Katydid for the spring. I have always wanted to work with resin, so this gives me the opportunity to do that while also combining my love of entomology and horticulture in a natural medium.”
Yuna Park
Daylily leaves (Hemerocallis sp.), indigo dye (Persicaria tinctoria)
“My project was a set of 3 pieces made using Korean knots, or maedeup. There are over 30 different knots used in maedeup, many of which are inspired by natural designs, such as flowers or insects. While it is typically made of silk cord made for that purpose, the practice originated in people using all kinds of natural fibers, including plant material, to tie and carry equipment. I wanted to attempt this entire process from scratch, by processing and dyeing raw plant material into my own cordage. I made cordage out of dried daylily leaves, which I shredded into quarters to make thinner. I dyed the cordage using indigo paste, which I built a fermentation vat out of using calcium hydroxide, rice wine, and fructose syrup.”
Caroline Kornbrek
Watercolor on paper
“I have always really loved lilies. They are such strongly shaped flowers with their unique architecture. All along the roads in New Jersey, there are tons of these bright orange lilies on the side of the road during the summer. So many, that people may disregard them or treat them as weeds. When I was very little, I hated the concept of “weeds” and would get upset when my mother would call dandelions ugly. I wanted to capture the beauty in these side-of-the-road plants, no matter how many I have seen before. I learned that their Latin name is Hemerocallis fulva, more commonly known as Orange Daylilies or sometimes ‘Ditch Daylilies.’”
Julie Cardon
Baskets made of plant-based materials: bittersweet (Celastrus orbiculatus), cattails (Typha sp.) and gourds (Lagenaria siceraria).
Zachary Kozma
Air drying clay; rosemary (Salvia rosemarinus), lemon cypress (Hesperocyparis macrocarpa), widow’s thrill (Kalanchoe sp.)
“My most meaningful connections with plants have been utilizing my senses. When I walk through a forest I like to grab leaves alongside the trail, crinkle them up, and smell them. This has helped me ID plants and also make a deeper connection with plants in general. Each of the three pots I created emphasizes one of what I consider the three most important senses used to identify plants: sight, smell, and taste. I chose plants that demonstrate the traits. Along with this, I emphasized the senses by sculpting the pots to demonstrate the organ used to perceive these senses. This provided a whimsical wonder I wanted to implement in my project, also making the viewer feel a little uncomfortable or even laugh a little bit. I hope to inspire people to not only look at the plants around them but utilize all of their senses to achieve a deeper connection to the flora in their own backyards.”
Emily Hernandez
Emily’s Teeny-Weeny Plant Scrapbook
Watercolor, mixed media on paper
“This was an investigation of the magical wonder of plants on Cornell University’s campus through watercolor paintings. I really enjoyed painting using oil, acrylic, gouache, but I have often been hesitant to use watercolor. During the creation of the scrapbook, I liked collecting parts of a plant or flower and painting from observation. I liked learning how to use different brushstrokes to create different parts of a plant and learning more about the plant itself. Now, anytime I walk around campus, I like searching for the plants I painted and see how they change with time.”
Robert Brooks
An Iris Regrown
Watercolor, wire, resin, dried plants
“An Iris Regrown is a documentation of growth born of trauma. The first layer of the piece is a watercolor painting that’s shredded in the dirt—a direct allusion to Louise Gluck’s iris being in the ground in her poem “The Wild Iris.” In many ways, my journey from last year was like the iris from the poem. From this layer sprouts a wired-wrapped gold tree, ornamented by resin-encased plants. Each encased plant has a significant meaning. Notably, most of the plants are from areas in my hometown that I associate with my childhood.”
Farzana Hossain
Acetone prints on paper
“Every Week, I went on mindful walks and observed the change in season in my natural environment at two sites on Beebe Lake and in Varna. Nature provides different multitudes of shapes and patterns, with some of them that change over the seasons, and the purpose of this study is to notice those shapes that are not commonly appreciated until looked at attentively.”
Nate Jackson
Confrontation
Oil on canvas, 6’ x 4’
“For this painting, I wanted to think about space and the potentialities that underlie our systems. I wanted to think about dimensions of dissembling, existing in alternate planes while still remaining in the grounds of its subjects. More specifically, how does one confront environmental coercion; what happens when a people is then found using witchcraft and “magic,” which stem from the natural world. I wanted to confront the suppression that lies in the gaze of a “human.” One must confront the validity of existence in the face of the unseen.”
Isabella Colucci
Wool, goldenrod dye (Solidago canadensis)
“I have always wanted to try natural dyeing and I focused my efforts in this area for my creative project by using goldenrod to dye wool yarn for a knitted scarf. I picked out a lace pattern that I think resembles the branching panicles of Canada goldenrod, Solidago canadensis. I also wrote on the dyeing process and information about the ethnobotanical use of goldenrod in a notebook where I put my dyeing notes, mordant weight calculations, and other related information including a botanical illustration.”
Charlotte Mandy
Autumn and the Young Trees
A composition for piano
“This composition is concerning the seasonal fate of some of my favorite trees on the slope of campus. The oldest trees often seem to lose their leaves earliest, wisely bowing to the coming frost, but the young saplings — loving the sunlight of late summer — ignore the mycelial messages beneath the earth, and hold to their green raiment for longer than they ought. The song follows the joyous and sleepy warmth of autumn, the warning of the wind, and the promise of cold dawn. It was a joy to make, and to consider what it means to personify dawn, wind, and trees in music — to give them heroic voices, fears, realizations. Trees are in many ways deeply unlike humans and all the more interesting and beautiful for it, but in the ways that they care for each other, reaching out and holding each other under snow and deep time, they are very much like us in all the ways that matter.”
Tommy Chen
Indigo dye (Persicaria tinctoria) on paper
“This is an illustration done using an ink I made out of pigment that was extracted from indigo leaves from the Cornell Botanic Gardens. By going through the steps of processing the leaves and concentrating the pigment, I gained an appreciation for the immense amount of work that goes into producing indigo pigment on a large scale. Approximately one pound of leaves left me with around a teaspoon of pigment. In the future I would like to experiment with growing my own indigo as well as trying out other extraction methods to see if I can improve the yield rate.”
Thea McKenna
Seasonal Gems
Silk thread, acrylic beads, wire
“The title of my project is for the jewelry I created inspired by the seasons, but also for my fantastic friends who modeled them with me. I took pictures of plants that appear in my daily routine during each season this semester (late summer, autumn, and early winter). From these pictures, I made a necklace inspired by the colors, textures, and subject matter of each image. My friends and I (the models) also became muses for the pieces as I was making them, as I tried to adapt each to their personal style. I will be giving the pieces to them after my presentation as a thank-you.”
Carl Chen
Botanical Meditations
Collection of poetry and photography
“Each poem follows different literary conventions, structures, and inspiration, as well as varies in length. Much like how Plantasia uses music to explore the cosmic and complex relationship between humans and plants, I want to use poetry and creative writing to do the same.” Excerpt:
Olive
By the bramble of the olive tree
under braids of old wood and soft light
my first homestead stood.
I was of thin and well-tempered folk–
the kind where we watched over our own–
only our own– jested, fought, laughed
in good spirits over the dinner table.
Where father and mother nurtured their child
delicately watching them sprout
nuzzling water into bedded roots,
mixing and churning the dirt to the right
rhythm, the right music, the right love.
Back in those days, I was a child afoot
I climbed the rungs of the olive tree
nestled within its heart, engorged in books
adventures, songs of old and new
mulled over this land
my parents carved a life out of
the sweat they spilled, the strains
they endured
to give me this piece of Earth
and this beautiful breathing tree
Phoebe Hart
Foraged red maple (Acer rubrum), hickory (Carya sp.), cattails (Typha sp.), and locally grown gourd (Lagenaria siceraria)
“I wanted to use this project to preserve and honor my natural surroundings in a meaningful way to me. I have strong nostalgic ties to food and cooking, so I thought a dinnerware set made for two would be the perfect way to honor the sentiment I wanted the project to convey. I whittled and sanded the wooden pieces, decorated them via wood burning, and then treated the wood with bamboo oil. In planning what to eat on this dinnerware, I thought about the most nostalgic and love-imbued foods I could, as well as foods that are commonly shared when eaten.”
Mikala Anderson
Wool yarn dyed using beets (Beta vulgaris), carrots (Daucus carota), and celery (Apium graveolens)
“The pattern chosen was to represent the veins on leaves. The colors that were chosen for the yarn were to represent the colors of leaves in the fall in the Catskill Mountains. I chose to do this project because I love to crochet, and I wanted to come up with an idea to represent the mountains from where I am from.”
Lucy Cao
Watercolor, colored pencils, pressed flowers, mixed media collage on paper
“The contents of the book include scientific information and description of 8 types of common Ithaca wildflowers and fun facts like folklore of plants’ names or functions. The cloth used as front and back covers are hand-dyed with boiled sunflower seeds, which were made in one workshop of the class about plant dye. I believe my work could encourage my audience to appreciate the beauty of wildflowers and know more about these indeed valuable and wonderful plants.”
Glen Passow
Beech leaves (Fagus grandifolia)
“My final project is a model of a hot air balloon made out of beach leaves. The process was very similar to papier-mâché, but it used leaves instead of paper and hot glue to hold the project together. The basket and the “strings” connecting the balloon to the basket were also made of beach leaves meaning that the entire project is made out of one species of leaf. Hot air balloons represent a significant memory to me of fair-weather days in the northeast where I grew up.”
Winfield Mac
Planted aquarium “aquascape”
“I decided to make a low-tech planted tank that features a fall theme. I used some sketching skills to come up with a plan for the aquarium and also get a better understanding of some\ color theory and design that comes with crafting an underwater garden. A planted tank, based on the Walstad Method, is a tank that has multiple layers of substrate and features live plants growing in this media. Aquatic plants are super unique and I enjoyed learning about them. They play an essential role in the nitrogen cycle, up-taking toxic compounds like ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates. This keeps the water safe for the fish and other critters in the tank.” Learn more at Winfield’s Planted Tank webpage.
Chenchen Lu
Wood, bells, gourds (Lagenaria siceraria)
“I wanted to combine my love of bells with horticulture. I am a chimesmaster here at Cornell. I started out with an idea of gourds looking like bells but had no idea about how to transform gourds until we went to Gourdlandia. The gourds have the note they correspond to engraved on them. You can swing the gourds to ring the bells attached inside.”
Jiali Chen
Felt, glass, plastic
“My final project is a 3D picture frame of different felt succulent models. The succulents were made by cutouts of pieces of felt in various colors. Overall I learned a lot from this project since I realize that even though I love my succulents, I haven’t really taken much time to observe them as closely as I have recently for the purpose of this project. I also chose to feature my dinosaur toy in the center of the piece since it brings me as much joy as my succulents do, and I also thought the spikes along its spine resembled that of Haworthia.”
Puja Oak
Leaves, cattail (Typha sp.), paper, gourd (Lagenaria siceraria), electric lamp components
“My final project is a set of modular lamp bases and shades that I made out of natural materials. I was inspired by wanting to bring the feeling of sunlight on trees into the home, and radiating LED light through and onto materials that I found outdoors seemed like the perfect way to capture that imagery. I faced some challenges such as figuring out how to press the leaves adequately and how to fit the lightbulb into the gourd base. Overall I think I learned a lot about how to preserve and represent plants in an aesthetic way. Even foraging for my materials was a very thought provoking process and forced me to look closer at the plants around me and how they could be used in different ways.”