“I don’t think we can begin to understand beauty’s gravitational pull without first understanding the flower, since it was the flower that first ushered the idea of beauty into the world the moment, long ago, when floral attraction emerged as an evolutionary strategy. – Michael Pollan, The Botany of Desire, 2001
I recognize my own process in Pollan’s discussion of the bumblebee who plunges into the bloom, completely unconscious of the flower’s powerful role in the “co-evolutionary bargain” between bee and plants as they act on each other. Reflection on my co-history with the blooming objects of my desire for beauty make it eminently clear how much they have altered my personal history, my philosophy, and my modus operandi.
My passion for beauty and photography began in the garden and expanded to landscapes, travel scenes, architectural details, abstract images from nature, and playful and fantastical visions of all these objects of forays to Virginia, Washington, DC, Maryland, and cross-country and international travels.
I have shown my pictures in the Photography Exhibit at the Waterford, Virginia annual fairs and in the town’s Red Barn exhibits of juried fine art. My solo shows include the Common Grounds Coffee and Tea Shop in Arlington, Virginia and The Lower Atrium, Inova Fairfax Hospital. The National Capital Orchid Society awarded the Palik Memorial Award for “Best Photograph” in show to my “Streaming into the Deep” a “paintography” collage creation.