I created an ephemeral field journal which describes how my extended period of observation in Claude Monet’s garden creates the space for discovering a deeper awareness of the cultivation of fragile life. The project has two facets: 1) cinemagraphs and 2) peace studies. The cinemagraphs are ovals quivering with small movements that evoke the feeling of a breathing landscape; these cinemagraphs reflect on the quality of near stillness in Monet’s water garden. Each cinemagraph is created by digitally stitching painted and layered photographic images together to encapsulate a shimmering moment of time. The peace studies involve gestures of paint and fallen flowers from Monet’s garden. Each study is a meditation on climate change inspired by interviews with the gardeners from Monet’s garden. The journal tries to capture the fleeting quality of light on a flower while recognizing that our climate is always in a state of fluctuation.

This project is generously supported by Giverny: The Versailles Foundation Munn Artist Program and The Terra Foundation for American Art.

A sampling of the cinemagraphs as well as early work on the peace journal can be found below. A genesis NFT portfolio edition of the cinemagraphs is available here.  

touch in a floodgiverny walk songthe quivering heartyour body remembersfragile courageon lonelinessswim to methe delicacy of equilibriumon distanceon healinghere was peaceletting gothe winds of healingthe rain touches everybodywhen the rain meets the lightmorning swimshifting patterns you feel like the oceanwhen you take my handseeing twilight on a thumbnailwe change like the weatherthe distance between gray and bluemurmation in my heartlove is longer than timetwilight swimwherever we are is a shore (silver azure violet blue)independent and interdependent (azure blue)time's relentless melt (mercury blue)graphite wave (silver blue)touch in a flood (violet blue)water bed (sea blue)remember us (cerulean blue)sitting back to back (paris metallic blue)on trust (giverny sky blue)peace study, green/pinkpeace study, pale pinkpeace study, june deep pinkpeace study, arrival pinkpeace study, amaranth pinkpeace study, whitepeace study, cornflower bluepeace study, periwinkle bluepeace study, pale greenpeace study, yellow/greenpeace study, yellow (bag)peace study, goldenpeace study, yellow/redpeace study, redpeace study, poppypeace study, opalpeace study, violet bluepeace study, bearded purplepeace study, deep purplepeace study, violet waterpeace study, metallic purplepeace study, lavenderpeace study, purplepeace study, disruption whitepeace study, dividedpeace study, red goldpeace study, silver greenpeace study, metallic greenlove studyimpermanence study