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    • Home
    • Portfolio
    • Bio and CV
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    • Exhibitions
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    • Wild-Edge Offerings
    • Teacher's Corner
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  • Home
  • Portfolio
  • Bio and CV
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  • Exhibitions
  • Speaking
  • Media
  • Wild-Edge Offerings
  • Teacher's Corner
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mary abma: artist

mary abma: artistmary abma: artistmary abma: artist

selected lumen prints

background

My mother was looking through a drawer filled with old photos and mementos when she discovered a herbarium that had belonged to my great-grandfather's sister. She had completed this herbarium as a school project in 1895, at the age of 15. My mother gave me this folio.  Not only was I taken with the fact that I was looking at plants that had been pressed 114 years ago, but I was also taken with the beautiful effect created by the ghostly reverse photographic images that the plants had left imprinted on the opposing pages.


Before viewing this herbarium, I had already considered creating ghostly images of plants that are native to my yard.  These would be woodland plants of the Carolinian Forest. Inspired by what I saw in my great-great aunt's book, I contacted a photographer friend of mine who suggested that I use a Lumen printing process in which the light of the sun exposed photographic images of plants laid out on photo-sensitive paper.  The results are stunning.  I want to state here that I have not been poaching protected wild areas for the plants I use in this series.  They have all come from private properties with their owners’ blessings.

auntie's herbarium

    selected lumen prints

      "living lumens": lumens made by placing silver gelatin paper into landscapes to mark the passage of time with light and shadow movements


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