Attributed- Field studies (working title) I am reimagining photographically the history of botanical drawings done by women in the Victorian era. These women struggle to make work as they were not able to paint on site because of social pressure and thought to be too frail to travel so they had no access to exotics. In response many of these women’s subject were taken from their gardens or in the countryside they knew well. They would even plant and nurture foliage seasonal so they could paint. In their lifetimes their work was overlooked or attributed to their male peers.

My work honors this history and the women before me as I collect specimens on Toronto Island, I am also interested in the idea of preserving and cataloguing in my case the photographic document and how material is interpreted. As I develop categories for this work, I realize historically rather than a fine science these categories appear arbitrary or based on the gather’s interests and access to material.