After the Flowers are photographs of botanical specimens from my small Rhode Island garden. They are inspired by the glass flowers made by Leopold (1822-1895) and Rudolf Blaschka (1857-1939), a father and son team of Czech glass artists in the collection of the Museum of Natural History at Harvard University, and the Svalbard global seed vault off the coast of Norway. The glass flower models allowed scientists to examine the forms of fleeting botanical samples long after the originals would have withered. The seed bank was constructed to store a backup of seeds from as many crop varieties as possible worldwide to allow reintroduction of species that may one day be at risk due to manmade or natural catastrophes.
These photographic specimens, and their inspirations, are small monuments to past lives, and reliquaries of hope for an uncertain future.