I walk around my South Florida neighborhood.  It’s especially helpful after the community landscapers are done for the week.  Rain and wind help too tossing things about, leaving the remains on the ground and in the swales:  clippings and whole  leaves, shrubs and flowers. I bend and forage, gathering some here and there and here and there. Some retain color but are scarred by manhandling and shears; for others, waning colors drained by the passage of time; for others, the browns and blacks of last gasps with detailed ruinage resembling lace. I place them on the ground which becomes the base then arrange and rearrange and rearrange.  

 

I photograph from different angles, some vertical, some horizontal until the colors and shapes evolve into patterns and finally balance. 

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With the BOUQUET category, the first yield is the foundation.  The vividness of color lasts a day.  The next day, another walk and another yield, goes on top of the foundation and I redesign.  Then another and another...  It's kind of like painting, having a canvas or wood base and then adding new layers .

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For the past few years, I've looked closely at the delicate detritus of landscape.   Beauty even tarnished and aging can be found everywhere including  discarded remnants under bushes, trees, shrubs or gathering in the swales for the taking.​

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My  BOUQUET photos were reminding me of earlier abstract modernist painters from the 19th and 20th century; Joan Miro from the former, Vassily Kandinsky from the latter.  I hadn't consciously looked to them for inspiration yet I see it now.​