This exhibition is the culmination of a cross disciplinary inquiry exploring renowned poet Emily Dickinson’s deep connection to the natural world. Created by artists Leah Sobsey (based in Chapel Hill, NC) and Amanda Marchand (based in Brooklyn, NY), "This Earthen Door" examines pure color found in nature, the changing environment, and the symbolism of flowers in art and literature.
As a teenager, Dickinson created an herbarium filled with over 400 pressed plants that she collected from her Massachusetts garden and on walks. In a gesture honoring her nearly 200-year-old effort, Marchand and Sobsey set out to grow these plants in their own gardens. From these they extracted the pigments from the 66 flowers to use within the Earthen Door project. They created anthotypes, plant-based photographs, made by applying the colorful liquids extracted from the plant to the surface of a sheet of paper. They placed a photographic negative, made from a specific page of Dickinson’s herbarium, on the pigment-coated sheet and exposed it to the sun. The sun’s UV bleaching rays left a shadow imprint on the paper, creating a camera-less sun-print.
The program will be held online via Zoom and the link to access the event will be sent to the email address during the pay-what-you-wish registration. Please double-check your spam/junk folder if you do not receive the confirmation email. If you encounter any difficulties in registering or accessing the Zoom link after registering, please email bgamberg@brandywine.org. The event will be recorded and shared if you are unable to attend live.