Regular Gallery hours:
Saturdays: 11-4
Or by appointment: 816-807-4793 | kansascityscp@gmail.com
Artist Reception Friday, September 10, 6-8 pm
COVID protocols strictly observed - please be vaccinated and wear a mask
Artist Statement
The evolution toward the body of work titled “Backyard Botanicals” began in the spring of 2020, just as Covid 19 was taking hold in North America. The Anita Gorman Conservation Center in midtown Kansas City offered a drive-through experience to obtain free native perennials. I got in line along with many others to get my four plants, which multiplied to eight and were buttressed by offerings from a local nursery. My husband is an ardent backyard gardener, and we were interested in giving natives a try. Into the ground went various spindly, weedy plants with unfamiliar names (to us) such as mallow, yarrow and coreopsis, added to our daylilies and white forsythia and built up as a border along with some herbs and low bushes. As promised, the natives thrived and began to bestow a certain, very low-key beauty to our backyard.
Fast forward a year.
In March 2021, I took some random photos of sage leaves from the billowing plant near the back door. I was later noodling around on the computer when I discovered that altering the color and exposure of these pictures could impart a kind of antique, nostalgic esthetic that I found satisfying. I started to enthusiastically gather plant material from the backyard and make images with all sorts of variegations: black background, washed-out color, white background, subtle grays, black background, saturated color, white background, desaturated tones. Some of the plant groupings were lush, pushing the boundaries of their frames, while others were more spare and controlled.
I had found a loquacious inward voice that enjoyed the different layers of visual delight, such as hints of medieval ”herbals” made by monks , who used drawings to identify plants with medicinal qualities. I also was reminded of the pastime of innumerable 19th century women—including Emily Dickinson—who pressed plants into notebooks and commonplace books, some of which have been carefully preserved in rare book libraries. (And because of digitization, I was able to look at Emily Dickinson’s botanical notebooks at Harvard University.)
I also came across a term to describe my work: Plant Portraits--an opportunity to display the sweeping leaves, tiny flowers, spindles of stems, small petals, branches and seeds, on their own terms; non-scientific and devoid of detailed classifications. These botanicals describe a bit of the precious flora of my backyard. If my images evoke a simpler time, when Victorians relentlessly categorized the natural world and photography was a young medium, maybe they can also speak through a contemporary sensibility in a far more complex world.
Laura K. Lloyd
September 2021
Bio: I spent my first years on a farm in Richmond, MO, where beauty, quiet and mystery made elemental impressions. I am a fifth-generation Missourian. I have lived in Kansas City, for most of my life, with the exception of my college years and young adulthood, when I lived in New York and worked for magazines and other publications and New Jersey, where I attended Princeton University and majored in English.
I have made photographs intermittently since I was a teenager. During my working years I was mostly a business journalist and a high-school journalism teacher. With my husband, I raised three daughters, all now adults who live on the East and West Coasts. Along the way, I finished a Studio Art non-credit certificate from the Kansas City Art Institute, which deepened my understanding of many artistic processes. I am a fervent hobbyist, and I enjoy needlepoint and embroidery as well as drawing and painting.
The natural world continues to inspire my photography, although I have taken my share of images of people and their creations. I am primarily self-taught, although I have benefited from some excellent tutelage at a few critical moments. My work has been accepted into several juried shows in the metropolitan area, including the 2020 Current Works exhibition organized by the Kansas City Society of Contemporary Photography.