Our eyes usually sweep past the plants growing along the side of the road or in empty lots, abandoned properties and sidewalk cracks, mostly grasses and what we typically call “weeds.” It is their colorful, showy flower cousins who draw our glance and our praise. Webster defines a weed as “a plant that is not valued where it is growing and is usually of vigorous growth.” But if we stop for a moment and look closely at these plants, we will find each of these “weeds” to be a little miracle. Their variety, subtle coloring, shape, and complex architecture beg us to look more closely. They grow strong in the weakest soil, the harshest conditions, untended, asking nothing of anyone. Once we slow down and really look at each of these stalwart lives, how can we not love their grace, their independence, their grit? What if we valued each plant, each life a little more? How might the world be different?
 
Sweet fern, common nipplewort, bottle brush, inland sea oats, passion flower, German velvet grass, purple grass, goldenrod, miscanthus grass, purple fountain grass, hop beam seed, burning bush, sedge, Japanese brome grass, timothy grass, airy bittercress, mouse oats, hairy crabgrass, Japanese stilt grass, fiddlehead fern, pink, switchgrass, chaffy sedge, sheep sorrel, common yarrow, blue grama grass, foxtail brome, Yorkshire fog grass, adagio grass, cicada wing
 
26x40
Matte giclée print on watercolor paper