“when they come back–if Blossoms do”
My collaborative project with Wave Hill’s interpretive gardener, Charles Day, was a series of “labels” linking plants Emily Dickinson grew in her Amherst garden with spring plants in Wave Hill’s Flower and Wild Garden. Each etched copper label specifically connected a Dickinson poem to a plant or season and recalled her practice of using scrap envelopes as writing surfaces for her poetry.
At the start of the exhibition, 36 shiny copper labels hung on the walls of Wave Hill House, arranged by month. As the exhibition and spring progressed, Day rotated the labels out into the gardens, placing each next to its corresponding plant, as it emerged from the ground or wall.
36 eteched copper pieces, anodized aluminum, dimensions variable
Emily Dickinson Rendered exhibition, Wave Hill, Bronx, NY, 2007 Photographed by Benjamin Swett
In May 2021, ‘when they come back–if Blossoms do” was commissioned by Wave Hill to be in the exhibition Art & Nature Entwined.