Nature, Imitated: Drawn monstera, white roses, orange balls, blue protea (marker, ink, color pencil, gold and/or silver paint, on cut paper); orange calcite beads and copper wire, 2020

Drawn, colored, cut, and assembled by hand.

14” h x 13” w | headband 7.75” h x 5.75” w ref: crown #1

contact to purchase: beth@local-art-ideas.com or 917-374-7516

tax: added at checkout

shipping (after close of exhibition on October 19, 2020) : usps to us $25

watch heather make her crowns

from the artist: nature is an endless source of inspiration. i'm serious. ask any artist--you'd be hard-pressed to find one of them that's never drawn something from nature. it's no coincidence that this crown was the first to be made. . and while i tried my best, there's just no imitating nature. the monstera in my front room holds a soft verdant green that is impossible to capture. the texture of protea is unfeasible to perfectly represent. i still try to express these lovely plants with my pen and paper. similarly, crowns in most royal traditions try to capture nature, but with precious materials. i took inspiration from the pansy flower tiara by jean-baptiste fossin, a beautiful crown made in the 1700’s. what interests me with this crown is the juxtaposition of precious metals with organic, ephemeral materials. where do my materials--which are paper and wire, materials that will bend with time, but not as quickly as a flower lives and dies--fit? how is value measured with these materials, wherein most plants are worth far less (not considering dutch tulip mania in the 1600's!) to precious stones and metals?

the shape of the crown is unregulated. i wanted to capture how asymmetrical nature is, and how that asymmetry can contribute to a whole composition. little sprigs of orange balls stick up out of the crown, bringing texture to the halo-like hat. these little balls are not exact representations of a flower, but perhaps an amalgamation of orange, tangerines and buddleia globosa, a delightful little bush. orange calcite beads dot the creation, the only semi-precious thing on a crown mimicking crowns made of jewels, those mimicking what we are graced with naturally.