I grew plants on a digital print.

For my exploratory art class-

Artist Statement:

Two things I love and am passionate about, photography and gardening, have influenced this project. I chose chia seeds because of their versatile growing capabilities, speed, and familiarity. As the project progressed I found myself more and more attached to the central idea of growth emerging from my image. At first it was a wild concept, meant to be quirky and interesting, but I realized about half way through that subconsciously it was more meaningful to me. I am writing the artist's statement the day of presenting because I hadn't fully observed my true feelings until now. I think giving something so much of my time and effort to make it beautiful and exactly the way I wanted, but for it to turn out anything but, reminds me of what it is like to really love and garden. In your mind you have all these thoughts and scenes of what the love can be and you fall for that love. In your mind love will be wonderful and fulfilling just for you and exists to make you happy. In reality, love will grow in it's own way, and will fulfill your needs, but not necessarily wants, and love will not always be perfect. The plant and print eventually became one ecosystem, though some of it was toxic to the plants, other parts flourished and made it's own shape, taking what it needed from the paper and making use of seeds that didn't sprout.  I had to accept that shape, and even though it wasn't exactly what I had in mind, I came to accept it and see it for what it was. I remember when I first started gardening I realized that plants wanted to grow, I assumed that I would somehow have to force them, in a similar way, the seeds on my picture wanted to grow, but they did it in their own way, and it makes them more beautiful and not less.
I got so much more from this project than I had anticipated. I will often think of it in the future and may even give it another go.