Still Series from The Heidelberg Project

I love my garden, and the opportunity to be outside. Michaelmas daisies (a favourite flower) is in the ‘herbal concoction’ bottle and lying in front as well (obscured due to the short focal length of the lens). Michaelmas daisies represent ‘farewell’ in the language of the flowers, indicating to me oncoming autumn and winter, a difficult time with short hours of daylight which can be depressing. I was also facing much time being away from home – the farewell – for weeks of radiation. Yet there’s also an enclosed sense in this image – the background (lines) is slightly more in focus, and the table with my great grandmother’s cloth, with the wine bottle ready, invites you to an afternoon drink in the sun.

Dad travelled a lot for work to Germany, Belgium and the UK in particular, and would bring home beautiful wee perfume bottles for my mother. These are representative of what he would bring her, one is fallen with the stopper open and spilt. I leave this to the viewer for interpretation. The third (dark) bottle is the same one which recurs in many of the images. I particularly like the shape of this bottle and I envisage it as being used for herbal concoctions – I link this with Hildegard von Bingen, and Germany, where Dad travelled for work.

Includes a silver Christening Mug engraved for my grandfather, HHC (Henry Hope-Cross) and also a great great aunt (Mary Lillian), who died young. My father, David Hope-Cross, had died too young, of cancer. I didn’t plan on dying young if I had any choice.

There are a few santolina flowers (Santolina rosmarinafolia ‘the holy flax’) in the Christening Mug; this is a link to Lacock Abbey in the UK, where I first saw this particular plant, growing near where the ‘lady chapel’ used to be. Lacock Abbey was built by Ela of Salisbury when she founded the Abbey in 1232, and whom I have imagined to be a strong lady.

Once back in NZ, I acquired a plant for my own garden. Also, a lidded bottle representing creams (a friend sent me some fabulous calendula cream for healing scars, from the UK) and a bottle with a dahlia from our garden; in the language of the flowers, dahlias represent everlasting commitment, an eternal bond between two people, elegance, and dignity.

Giorgio Morandi was a painter who painted bottles. He used the same small space in his studio for all his work; similarly I use a particular table in an alcove in our garden, repeating a theme yet varying it each time. These particular specimens belonged to Eric’s mother, Rachel Schusser.

I bought these hand blown wine bottles many years ago – apparently they would likely have belonged to gold miners. We all need a good glass of wine at some stage, and it’s also a link to my home in Central Otago, wine growing area par excellence!

The herbal concoction bottle, with a bunch of verbena.  The message of verbena in the language of the flowers is ‘pray for me’. It was valued by the Druids in magic and medicine, and it was claimed that it offered protection against …’all manner of evil’.  Summer is also made of memories, isn’t it, often of holidays and enjoyable times. Much as I love my time out in my garden, making images with my treasured mousetrap camera.

The mysterious happenings of chemistry/chemo is the key feature of this image, and what exactly is it coming out from those bottles? The recurring herbal concoction bottle makes another appearance, linking to the Heidelberg Apotheke (Pharmacy) Museum which has mysterious and fabulous bottles of all shapes and sizes for [primarily] healing use.

An image of family chemistry bottles. It alludes to my photographic family history; Dad studied photographic engineering in Köln / Cologne in Germany; HHC my grandfather was a photographer in Masterton (and the RNZAF) in Aotearoa New Zealand and I sometimes use my great grandfather’s cameras & printing frames. My family history is important to me and photography links me to those who went before.