“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.
Additional Artworks
From Cathleen Cramer
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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
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Museum of Ordinary Values, Lily PDs
mixed media on wood
12 x 12 x 1 in
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Museum of Ordinary Values No. 1
Mixed media on canvas
48 x 36 x 2 in
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Museum of Ordinary Values No. 2
Mixed media on canvas
48 x 36 x 1 in
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Americana, Remembrance
Mixed media (personal photographs, vellum, acrylic, found fabric, found quilt ephemera, found imagery)
20 x 26 x 2 in
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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