Tekst achterflap

It began with the question to draw a garland. One of us drew, the other one thought, ‘why not write about what I am seeing?’

We found so many words in the garden together, while we were looking for flowers in the autumn. We’ve looked for flowers growing on peat soil, in the mud and during a dry spell, the sunlight draining all the colour away. Each flower, with its unique way of developing, its own shape and hue, emerged from thoughts sparked by conversations on desire, expectations, opinions, decline, wonder and joy.

Bloom began with autumn and to us, this is no paradox. We adore autumn, it feels as though all the seasons are blended in it. Perhaps because we are no longer spring chickens ourselves, too. We selected nine autumn flowers, three for each month. We fashioned a garland, a band of 36 flowers blooming in a wild garden. So, it became a year of making drawings and writings about life, parts of it, forming a collection.

The list of flowers remains incomplete, the words fall short in capturing our thoughts, feelings, and experiences yet to be had. We made our choices from what the garden offered us at that time and we reaped growth, friendship and connection. Whatever life will bring you, pick a flower, a poem, make a garland. For the seed, the bulb, the germ, the sprout will eventually bear fruit, a nut, a scattering by the wind and in doing so, proclaim the beginning of a new year. A life. That is what it means to bloom, a perpetual movement of life itself.

Rivka Lucas (drawings) and Arwen Gerrits (poems)

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