MIDNIGHT GARDEN

Hazy outlines of inky black florals. Finding hope and beauty in the strange, dark silence of life-changing events.

For a while now I’ve been working on a group of small, floral ceramic sculptures. They’re a little dark and moody—but in a good way (and perfect for Halloween season!) There’s only a few of them, most are meant to hang on the wall. But it has taken weeks of sitting with the component flowers…looking at them…making more little petals and pieces…arranging and re-arranging them…and working through many iterations of what would eventually emerge on the studio table.

This collection is called “Midnight Garden”. I'm often inspired by flowers and vintage botanical illustrations, but these sculptures are also influenced by a memorable late-night autumn bike ride through the Garden District in post-Katrina New Orleans. It may seem weird to be inspired now by something that happened 15 years ago but, coincidentally, how life felt then feels weirdly similar to present day 2020.

The memory of the feeling of that night has stayed with me.

It was in early November of 2005 and I had only been home a short while after being displaced for a few months from that wiley hurricane which devastated my hometown. One particular night I was out visiting a friend. On the bike ride back to my temporary housing, I heard something unfamiliar: utter silence. Never in my life of growing up and living in New Orleans had it ever been this quiet. But there it was, dark and expansive and inexplicably serene, floating all around me. The only sound was the squeak of the bike chain, and the crunch of the street under the tires.

I was struck by how this moment felt as I rode past the shadowy shapes of the houses and gardens peeking out from behind the wrought-iron fences. It was really dark out. There were only a few lights on here and there, and I saw no other people around. It was as if I was the only person left behind in some crazy, disorienting dream. But it felt oddly amazing and freeing. Because underneath the heavy, profound sadness I had for the loss of my previous life and the city as I knew it, I could feel the excitement and hope of what the future would bring starting to take shape and bloom.

The emptiness and quiet of that bike ride would be fleeting. Soon, people would be returning home, the city would once again be loud and vibrant—and even thought nothing would ever be the same, things would eventually evolve into some new yet-unknown normal. (For me, that would mean a whole new life in Atlanta.) There is a saying that would emerge in New Orleans after Katrina, “la beauté d’entropie”: meaning there is a beauty to be found in chaos, disorder and decay.

Despite the tragedy and chaos of this aberrant year, I once again can see glimpses of beauty and feel that same kind of hope and excitement for the future.