This work was created on the first dimensional panel that varies simultaneously in height, width, depth, and pitch. The original inspiration for this work was a black canna (a member of the taxonomic family Cannaceae) that my partner and I have growing in our backyard. It is the first plant we bought together, five years ago, and as a result, over time it has grown to symbolize our relationship in my mind. Even during the hard times that canna has represented our relationship to me. It represents hope. It makes me feel sanguine—in this sense optimistic, even in times of difficulty. It’s a hardy plant, surviving droughts and floods and freezing temperatures and blazing heat. It moved with us from Savannah to Knoxville, and has thrived better here than it even did there, as have we. It is also just a beautiful plant. It stands five feet tall, its leaves are a fascinating dark red-green color which explodes in the sunlight, and at the top, the flower that blooms is a stunning, intense complex red with pink and orange undertones. On closer inspection, there are light yellow dots inside each flower, increasing towards the pistil. Representing these yellow dots in my work was the key to unlocking the work, the “key to the stars,” because in splattering some iridescent gold paint on the panel, the work immediately turned nebulous, as if I had cut open a hole in spacetime and threw a black canna through it. Ultimately then “Sanguinebulous Cannaceae”—both the title and the work—is a message of hope: hope in humankind for a future in the stars, and hope in love, in my partner, for the life we’re building together, reflected in a black canna with a red flower.
