Botanica

The Ineffable Botanical Muse

The first flowering plants emerged approximately 125 million years ago…
Since then, flowers have evolved into an amazingly diverse, beautiful and exotic array of sensual, yet transient beauties that are often only enjoyed or appreciated for a brief time before the flower fades or transforms itself into fruit and / or seed again.

Ancient and medieval societies held certain types of botanical plants and flowers in very high esteem.  Shakespeare even speaks of the iconic symbolism of plants and flowers through Ophelia in Hamlet.  The Victorians developed an elaborate system of "floriography" which was often used as a secret or discreet form of communication in which the genesis / variety, form, color, quantity or even combination of various flowers in a bouquet evolved into poetic metaphors sometimes referred to as the "language of flowers".

These symbolic meanings have had great longevity; although some have evolved over time as well and are occasionally even contradictory, depending upon the source.  Some associations can even be more personal, intuitive or even idiosyncratic.

Creating art has always been a means for me to express things that spoken language cannot touch, or perhaps only begins to reveal…

In celebration of flowers, and the vital role they have played in the natural and emotive world we know -- I am honored to express the transient, fragile and ineffable eloquence of flowers – in the mysterious medium of glass*.  The unfading beauty of translucent glass also embodies the gesture of hand cut petals and painted enamels that organically drape and supplely meld together like a three dimensional painting composed in a timeless frozen liquid.

So what is it that flowers say to you -  or for you?

Catherine Lottes

* Created with recycled glass from a variety of sources that would otherwise be landfilled.
Each botanical form is individual and unique, yet also follows the natural and mysterious laws of science and physics.

Morning Glories

Lotus

Poppies

Sunflowers

Nastursium