Dandelion Hat

  Dan Webb is a Seattle artist who has done a number of dandelions in various media.  Besides being a great fan of Dan Webb’s work generally, I really connected with a dandelion drawing of his that was hung in the Greg Kucera gallery.  It was a pencil (I think) line drawing of a single dandelion on paper.  What struck me was the fact that the piece was hung with a single pin at the top.  The piece was given an entire wall and simply hung there in its curled, quiet way.  Though a very sophisticated and beautiful rendering, it was, after all, a dandelion.  Why a whole wall?

I began to think about that drawing a lot and I started to look at dandelions a whole different way.

I finally concluded that dandelions are the perfect metaphor for humility. Humility in the sense of being unwaveringly comfortable with who and what one is.  I won’t disclose my spiritual musings on this subject here, but I began to play with both the idea of dandelion as well as dandelions themselves.

My first dandelion piece was Dandelion Hat, (2008) shown above.  In the spirit of Magritte, this is most definitely not a dandelion.  I really liked using the loud color, the matte and fuzzy texture and a decorative (non-protective) hat to show what a dandelion is not, or what it’s not thought to be anyway – namely having a place in the decorative/desireable realm.

The hat is kindly (and beautifully!) modeled by Seattle artist, Kimberly Trowbridge.  I encourage you to see her works at http://kimberlytrowbridge.com.

Thank you for visiting my blog.