Bearing the Biome

To bear something is to carry it, and it’s also to give birth to it. Both are what we do with land. We inherit it, we carry it around inside us, and if we’re lucky we make something new out of it before we hand it on.

This piece is a still life that isn’t really still. The plants I chose are the ones I keep coming back to — the wild, the introduced, the ones that arrived here on ships and stayed. Our biome is a conversation between arrivals. So is this piece.

For collectors thinking about lineage — botanical, familial, or both — this one holds a lot in its 17×17 in. The square format makes it easy to place; a lot of collectors hang it in a hallway where they walk past it every day.