The temperatures slid down again over the last week. A perfect time to revisit the images I captured on my walk in Central Park after the last big snowfall. I worked with one image, and am extremely pleased with this reimagining of Winter Weeds.
Apart from the reworking of a somewhat bleak and wintry scene I'm also enjoying working with a subject that's ostensibly mundane which may explain my fascination with weeds in general. I'm adding to the vintage library, Common Weeds to explore/research the subject more which will be a continuing theme I feel this year because weeds are without doubt - hot. They are intrinsic to the growing interest in foraging for wild foods for which I might sign up for Wildman Steve Brill's tour of Central Park at some point. I know I paid good money for a bunch of wild spinach at the farmers market only to discover later I could have probably got this for free.
Apart from a revival of interest in their culinary and probable medicinal value, a move in general to the aesthetics of rusticity and simplicity could very well mean that the humble weed as beautiful object is also very much on the cards - see Albrecht Durer's 1503 masterpiece The Great Piece of Turf. Yesterday I purchased seeds for what I thought was a beautiful weed I came across in Central park last year, now re defined on the seed packet as Sea Oats, a perennial that's 'a centerpiece for Garden or Table'.
+ OG Media:Common Weeds by Paul Carpenter Stanley
