Flowers go with us in every major event in life through birth, marriage,
holidays, graduations, illness, and finally death. Flowers have been
grown in decorative gardens and used as adornment for centuries on
virtually every continent on earth. Where do most of these flowers start? Seed packets. I personally found seed packets an interesting object because of their surface. In particular a few of the seed packets that I used in the project were a gift given by someone very important to me. The seed packets that I have depicted represent the personification of plants to humans primary referring to me and my significant other. The most predominate packet is the sunflower which was a gift from my boyfriend. We initially were going to plant the seeds in my back yard at my rented house. However, the fear of planting them and then having to move over whelmed us, the seeds were never planted. So what would they become?? more garbage? I decided to use the expired seed packets for my mixed media class. The real concept behind this piece is just being ready for a commitment. Committing yourself to take care or something as small as a plant, to your relationship, or even yourself. Selfless beautifying the earth. My teacher mentioned something about important characters contributing to the piece. He brought up Johnny Appleseed, which I think could be a great reference for what I really should of done with the seeds. After painting, gluing, cutting, and pasting I began to sew into my flower packets. The sewing comes from the term "sowing crops" which means
dropping
seeds through a tube. The
implement would cut small channels into the soil and the seed would be dropped
into the channel. Before this time seeds were usually planted by a method
known as broadcasting. Broadcasting is simply throwing seeds onto
the ground. The seed drill had many advantages to the broadcasting
system. First a much higher percentage of seed came to produce
crops. Less seeds were lost to birds or other animals. Finally, with
rows, it was much easier for the farmer to weed his
crop. This process was conveyed with the actual sewing I incorporated into my piece.
Flower symbolism began with many ancient religions. Many flowers were
originally linked to ancient deities including Venus, Diana, Jupiter and
Apollo. During the Renaissance, nature was viewed as a reflection of
the divine.
Historically seed packets depict many varieties and colors of flowers and
vegetables that are considered extinct today . Horticulturists and
researchers are now using antique seed packets for referencing the
extinct varieties as they may only be seen as images in these packets (which are or course vintage seed packets and not the packets that I am using).
Below I found a interesting process of how vintage seed packets were made and I copied it on to my blog. I thought it was really interesting stratifying process that fit well with the project.
Stone Lithography - How the Seed Packets were Made
When one looks at any of the seed packets up close, they reveal that the
flower or vegetable image is made up of tiny dots. The foreground, the
background, the flower or vegetable itself, everywhere. The dots are
representative of the technique by which the artist drew the original
image. It is a DRAWING not a painting. The technique was called
STIPPLING. Stippling was created by using a pen with a needle point,
drawing only one of those dots at a time, a random dot drawing. It was
very labor intensive to say the least. The canvas that was used to
drawn on, was a slab of polished Limestone. The Limestone was about 4
inches thick and polished like glass. The artist wore a magnifying
glass visor and drew the dots one dot at a time, with only one color at a
time. A separate stone had to be used for each color. To increase
production speed, no one artist did the entire drawing themselves. Many
artists were involved making to a finished packet. A different artist
was assigned to each color. It turns out this is how silk screening was
invented, evolving from the stone technique. A separate stone for each
color - a separate silk screen for each color. Before 1920 this is how
it was done. After 1920 they were moving on to the CAMERA.
STEP 1: One color of a particular image is drawn, dot by dot on one
stone. The packets color range is as few as five and as many as 20
different colors. 4 color process had not been invented yet. That meant
as many as 20 different stones were used in an assembly line to obtain
only one packet. The ink that was used had a waxy-greasy base. That
made it water repellent. Grease repels water. Grease attracts Grease
STEP 2: The entire stone is flushed with water. The water is repelled
by the greasy drawing, but makes the rest of the surface of the stone
damp.
STEP 3: Now the color (the ink) is applied to the stone using a roller.
When the ink is rolled over the stone, the ink sticks where the grease
drawing is, but not where the stone is damp with the water. Remember,
grease attract grease and grease repels water or in this case water
repels grease. The inks came from Germany. There were called COAL-TAR.
To this day artists and printers consider them the best there ever
was. Coal-tar inks were primarily known for two things: Intensity and
most importantly, the colors did not fade over time.
STEP 4: Next, the blank paper, uncut and unfolded, is set on the
stone and even pressure is applied to the entire surface with an
un-inked roller.
STEP 5: Finally the paper is "peeled" off the stone and the inked part of the image transfers from the stone to the paper.
One color is completed. That was only the first stone. Then they moved
to stone #2 and so forth until all the colors were done. Remember
there could be as many as 20 different stones. Each step required
what is called "Perfect Registration" or alignment on the stone. In
other words, the unfolded packet paper is placed in exactly the right
position on the next stone. Positioning is determined by small marks on
the stone that look like plus signs (+) and little circles (o). There
were the same little plus signs and circles on the unfolded packet
paper. When the two plus signs and circles were perfectly lined up to
each other they made a pass. One of the most interesting items of all,
is that the combination of the technique,
colors and the dot process created a 3-Dimensional image. It takes a
magnifying glass large enough to accommodate both eyes to see.
Facts about seed packets- A short story that I found on the internet
Traditional flower gardening started in the 1860's in Philadelphia, when as a ten year old boy started breeding chickens and other birds. At age 14, he was a
published author in the top poultry trade journals of that time. By
seventeen, he was selling high quality poultry through a successful
mail-order business from his parents home. His business grew and he sold
other high quality animals as well as poultry. In 1878, when he was 20
years old, he decided to offer his customers high quality food for their
animals. He began to offer high quality seeds for sale. By 1881,
vegetable and flower seeds dominated most of his sales, and by the turn
of the century seeds were in, and poultry had been out for a long time.
The rest is history.
Burpee's seed catalogs, often more than 150 pages, was one of the most
popular pieces of reading material of the day. The catalogs contained
items not expected in a gardening catalog. It was loaded with stories of
Burpee's travels around the world in search of new and exotic produce
and flowers. Always guaranteed to be chock full of garden advice was a
given every issue.
In 1915, when Washington Atlee Burpee died , his family tried to have
the American Marigold declared the country's national flower. It was
then Illinois Senator Dirksen who submitted the bill to Congress and
fought to have it considered. Needless to say the attempt failed.
America did not have a national flower until 1986, when President Reagan
signed legislation proclaiming the "Rose".
