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Winnowing

Well Well Projects, 2021

This show was presented in partnership with Jade Novarino. 

Echinacea and yarrow, once dry and crisp are now black and softened. Many are snapped at the stalk and have toppled into the soil as mulch. Small plump birds hop between tree crowns and rose hips, hoping for a nut, a seed, an insect, anything to tide them over. Only three raspberry leaves, themselves a bright granny-smith green, hold out on the burnt umber vine. And beneath these bushes are worms and slugs and winter beetles, processing last year’s decay into new soil. 

Slow as the season is, I must leave the beds to rest, to process. It is the hardest on sunny days, when spurts of energy draw me into the yard with a desire to get it all going. This practice in patience is coupled with indoor tasks. The seeds must be sifted and sorted, last summer’s plums now frozen must be cooked and eaten, letters written, pages turned. In my head, too, histories considered, geographies researched, so much time goes to thinking about place.  All of this at the table: the indoor garden.  And in these shortened days I delicately prune myself, letting go of old mindsets and habits, and rerouting precious energy into new ones.