This year, I am committing to a quiet obsession.
Not one bloom a month. Not a curated handful. I will document every plant, every flower, every growth I encounter on the land I walk across in the English countryside. Several acres. Endless variation. Nothing overlooked (except perhaps the ragwort in the horse’s field).
A comprehensive botanical archive.
Every sprig, every weed, every blossom that insists on existing will be inked, pressed, and recorded. The land itself sets the rhythm. The seasons, not my calendar, dictate the pace.
An Inherited Instinct
“Good intentions are to record weather, garden, and any other events that I think might be historic”
– My Grandfather, 2005
My grandfather documented the blooms of this land with the diligence of someone who understood time through growth. Not dates alone – first appearances, seasonal shifts, the subtle rise and fall of petals through weeks and months.
He passed ten years ago. His notebooks remain, quiet evidence of someone who paid attention.
I am not copying him. Not yet. But I am responding to the same instinct – to notice, to preserve, to translate passing life into a tangible record.
Two Scales, One Archive
1. The Notebook
Each plant I find will be captured in ink inside a small notebook.
• True structure, veins, edges, imperfections.
• A record of every specimen, no matter how small or fleeting.
• A living archive, building page by page, plant by plant.
2. The Pressed Specimens
Alongside the ink, the physical plants will be pressed.
At the end of the year, these will be compiled into a single, large framed work – a monument to a year of growth.
The notebook is intimate. The pressed flowers are monumental. One observes. One preserves. Together, they become the archive.
Why Ink?
In 2022,I explored a more abstract approach botanical prints – gestural, expressive,interpretive, as well as other botanical artworks.
This year, the work is different.
Ink captures what exists, faithfully and intimately. Veins. Petals. Imperfections.
It records rather than interprets.
• Notebook: documentation
• Pressed flowers: preservation
Presence and evidence, side by side.
A Living, Seasonal Calendar
By the year’s end, the notebook will function as a full calendar of growth. Each page becomes a visual record of the land’s rhythm. There is honesty in this. You cannot force a bloom. You cannot extend a season. You can only observe.
The Long View
Eventually, I will recreate my grandfather’s bloom notebooks in illustrated form – diaristic, seasonal, intimate, reminiscent of The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady.
But that comes later. First, the archive itself must exist. First, I must see what grows, and how, and when.
What This Project Is
This is not nostalgia.
This is not romanticising the countryside (although that is incredibly easy to do – I love living here!)
It is observation, attention, preservation.
• Miniature sketchbook.
• Large framed artwork.
• Private archive.
• Public preservation.
Two scales. Same land. Different generation.
Every bloom matters. Every sprig counts. The obsessive act of recording becomes the artwork itself.
How It Will Unfold
There is no schedule beyond the seasons. Updates will follow growth itself.
The collecting, printing, and pressing process will appear mostly on TikTok. This space will hold the reflective snapshots – pages from the notebook, glimpses of pressed flowers, and the archive as it slowly builds.
At the end of the year:
• A complete notebook documenting every bloom
• A large framed piece composed of pressed specimens
A proof of observation. A quiet monument. A year captured in ink and petals.