The tale of decay. It is in the colors of the fall.
After the blossom is finished the roses may dance, as elegant as anyone. For the next stage, they change shape and tell about the vulnerability of human flesh. In the dark end, the grotesque masks are made visible, but still there are often tenderness. This is the way for the roses in nature.
As humans we also know the end is waiting. Death is unavoidable, but it can be beauty in life and beauty in death.
To My Wallflower
Wallflower mine, ere thy bright hues fade,
I shall be that whereof all is made;
ere thou hast shattered thy crown of gold,
I shall be mould.
When "Open the window!" I call, from my bed,
my last look is for thy golden head;
my soul will kiss it, as over thee
it flieght free.
Twice do I kiss thy lips so sweet,
Thine is the first, as it is meet;
the second, dearest, remember close
on my fair rose!
In bloom no more I shall it see;
so give it my greeting, when that shall be,
and say I wished on my grave should all
its petals fall.
Yes, say I wish that upon my breast
the rose thou givest my kiss shall rest;
and, Wallflower, be in Death´s dark porch
its bridal torch!
Henrik Wergeland 1845
translated by I.C. Grøndahl 1929
Here are portraits of the musicians in the forest. You may not have noticed them? They are small and hide at the bottom, but they are proud and play the trumpet. They blow the horn towards the sun as they were Satchmo. The blue notes reach the heaven like Miles Davis would have played. As Dizzy Gillespie they can twist in the melodies of the bebop, but sometimes they are melancholic with Chet Baker. They always play the jazz, day and night.
My botanical prints are inspired from the traditional herbarium. I have carried nature indoors and laid it out for pure delight. My nature is not exotic, it is the everyday plants you find in your backyard, in the forest and in the mountains and which you walk by without a second glance or thought. Why not take a better look at them? Give them entrance.
When they were at school, my children were always surprised on their trips to woods: they didn’t understand why the other children didn’t know the difference between yarrow and cow parsley. It seems that knowledge of plants is not passed down via the curriculum these days. In my attic, I find my mother’s old herbarium where she, in her school days, collected and dried plants recording the name, place, and date and signing it earnestly with her best handwriting. Maybe today’s school teaches more about ecosystems and climate, and a globalist nature, but what do these abstract concepts mean to children
if they don ́t know the basics? Nature deserves, and we deserve too, that we know it – that we dedicate time and thought to it.
This photo project is a small study on how to appreciate common nature with fresh eyes. Take a look at lily of the valley: it is beautiful when it flowers in springtime, but it is also appealing in late fall, when the leaves turn brown and the white flowers become red poisonous berries. Have you seen the bindweed twisting and turning elegantly around your neigh- bourhood? Have you taken a moment to appreciate the pleas- ing green of the black alder? Have you ever given pause to the flowers that will become blueberries? Take some time to learn the personality of the plants: the aggressive thistle, the playful witch hazel.