A rhododendron a day
OSGF
Q&A With Aimee Lee
Where have you been the past few months?
Since early March, I have been at home east of Cleveland. I had just completed a work trip to New York City, and Ohio began to shut down days after my return.
Historically, what ideas, issues, and subject matter(s) have inspired your work?
I have always been interested in the nature of being human, especially when faced with challenges that range from external societal demands to internal struggles of alienation and finding our place. Over time, I have expanded my view of human to human interactions to include how people operate in the wider non-human world.
What creative projects are you currently working on?
I wish I could say that I am doing Before Time work on handmade paper installations for upcoming shows that look at the built world, whether built by humans (masonry bricks) or non-human nature (honeycombs). Instead, all of my regular projects have ground to a halt and I am doing smaller things like sitting at my living room window to draw the one rhododendron bush directly outside of it. Almost every day since the end of March, I’ve been drawing it while inspired by Hannah Hinchman’s A Trail Through Leaves.
How has your artistic practice changed during this time?
Ambition and rushing have fallen away and I am savoring tiny things like choosing which pencils or gouache or pens I’ll use for a given day’s drawing. Often I’ve been encouraged to work bigger but right now drawing one plant and scaling down the size of my paper actually help me focus better. I can more easily evade the judging part of my mind when figuring out how to draw a dozen leaves on paper the size of a business card. The smaller bites are much more manageable than pressuring myself to deliver large projects for external deadlines.
Has COVID-19 shifted how you think about the natural world?
Yes. I’ve been fortunate that our lockdown coincided with spring. I have become more aware of the constant changing of light, its angles and duration, and paying much more attention to the natural world immediately outside my home. Now that all of my work, which almost always requires travel, has been cancelled, for the first time in my professional life I have a solid block of time at home so I can get plant clippings to root in the kitchen window, start seeds in egg cartons in the bathroom window, and plant herbs from friends. When I can, I drive to the closest nature preserve and hike into the woods to see how the bare tree canopy allows light to nurture the wildflower carpet on the forest floor. One afternoon, desperately in need of company and a change of scenery, I hiked along a river with friends and their dog, keeping distance from each other while learning to see and identify trout lily, Dutchman’s breeches, trillium, skunk cabbage, slate, beech, and so on. All of this makes me grateful that nature thrives and moves alongside us no matter what man-made disasters we face.
When I first moved to this house, I thought that the single rhododendron bush in front looked sad and sickly. Now I admire its tenacity, holding on even if never blooming, evergreen and constant, doing its best to survive. Looking at it every day keeps me moored while noticing things around it: the hostas pushing up, the baby bird in the grass that may or may not survive after being fed by its mother, the many weeds crowding out the lawn grass, and the sparrow ducking its head over and over to gather more and more dead grass for its nest.