Skip to profile content

“Oopsie Daisy” is a series of collages based on the image of the ox-eyed daisy, an invasive species I absentmindedly sowed in my backyard, thinking it was a native wildflower (oops!). It has become an important symbol for me, personally and politically, developing into an emblem of my complicity in the proliferation of the idea of American exceptionalism. I use various materials and techniques to create and re-create the daisy, as it morphs and changes from an image in a photograph, to a drawing, to a stencil, to an abstracted form. Through highly personal material choices, like my childhood bedsheets, scraps from expansionist children’s stories, natural history paintings, and books on American quilting, I hope to convey the pervasiveness of nationalist narratives in my own life and the lives of my children, as I work towards a more nuanced understanding of the American story.

From Cathleen Cramer

  1. A Human Being is a Process by Cathleen Cramer, Image 1.

    A Human Being is a Process

    Mixed media (inherited fabric, images of American quilts, images from inherited books, latex from home projects, china pencil, vellum) on canvas

    48 x 48 x 1 in

  2. Museum of Ordinary Values, Lily PDs by Cathleen Cramer, Image 1.

    Museum of Ordinary Values, Lily PDs

    mixed media on wood

    12 x 12 x 1 in

  3. Museum of Ordinary Values No. 1 by Cathleen Cramer, Image 1.

    Museum of Ordinary Values No. 1

    Mixed media on canvas

    48 x 36 x 2 in

  4. Museum of Ordinary Values No. 2 by Cathleen Cramer, Image 1.

    Museum of Ordinary Values No. 2

    Mixed media on canvas

    48 x 36 x 1 in

  5. Americana, Remembrance by Cathleen Cramer, Image 1.

    Americana, Remembrance

    Mixed media (personal photographs, vellum, acrylic, found fabric, found quilt ephemera, found imagery)

    20 x 26 x 2 in

  6. May All Grasses, Trees, and Plants Awake at My Coming by Cathleen Cramer, Image 1.

    May All Grasses, Trees, and Plants Awake at My Coming

    Mixed media (personal photographs, found wood, my children's whittling and carving, found paint, vellum)

    20 x 16 x 3 in