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In the 18th and 19th centuries, European artists documented the natural world with a dual purpose: to delight the eye and to catalog the strange and wonderful species being "discovered" abroad. Botanical illustrations from this period often bridged science and art, offering beauty and information in equal measure.
California, too, has long been a muse for those drawn to nature's abundance. Its superblooms—now monitored like a major sporting event, with spectators traveling thousands of miles to witness them—once stretched, uninterrupted, for miles. In 1873, early settler Jeff Mayfield described riding through an ocean of wildflowers so vivid it moved his mother to tears. His account offers a rare glimpse into California's ecological richness at a pivotal time: just before large-scale European-American settlement, driven by the Gold Rush, began to fundamentally reshape the land. Back then, wildflower displays were not occasional marvels triggered by perfect weather, but recurring features of intact ecosystems shaped in part by Indigenous stewardship. The vibrant fields Mayfield saw were likely the remnants of a biodiversity that had thrived for millennia—an abundance that would soon begin to fade under the pressures of grazing, farming, and invasive species. To read his words now is to glimpse a moment of staggering natural beauty on the edge of profound and lasting change.
European settlement introduced a slow, relentless transformation. Invasive grasses and species gradually displaced native wildflowers and plants, unraveling complex ecological relationships in the process. These native species weren’t just ornamental; they were foundational, shaping everything from bee populations and bird habitats to erosion control and fire resistance. Their disappearance reverberates through the entire ecosystem.
Like many Californians, I was vaguely aware of this ecological shift. I admired native gardens in San Francisco without grasping their ecological urgency. On hikes, I swooned over golden hillsides, unaware I was mostly admiring invasive grasses. The names and significance of native species eluded me—aside from the California poppy, I couldn’t have identified one.
That changed in 2020, when the Walbridge Fire swept through my rural neighborhood near Healdsburg. Our house remained standing, but everything else felt lost. Charred hills. Silent woods. The air thick with memory. In the wake of the fire, recovery became both a necessity and, slowly, a calling.
What began as an exhausting tangle of insurance paperwork and hazardous tree removal turned into something else. I found myself captivated by the land’s quiet transformation. I listened to botanists, consulted erosion specialists, learned from ecologists. I watched as the invasive species crept back with determined speed, and as native plants pushed through the ashes with quiet resilience. I walked the land daily. I took notes. I learned to see.
As the land healed, I did too. The grief that had darkened everything gave way to awe. There was something astonishing about bearing witness to an ecosystem rebuilding itself. I began to feel a quiet responsibility—not just to the four acres I tended, but to the overlooked plants that made this place what it was.
Around the same time, I was assisting a friend on interior photography shoots across Marin and Sonoma. In these carefully curated homes, I kept noticing vintage botanical prints: delicate ink drawings of lilies or herbs, tucked into bathrooms or hung as part of gallery walls. I had always thought them pretty but empty—decor, not devotion. But now, I looked at them differently.
These prints were records of attention. Their artists had studied each petal, each leaf, had attempted to render the scientific and the sublime in one image. I began to think of the plants I was getting to know: Diogene’s lanterns, maidenhair ferns, gooseberries, ceanothus. They had histories. They had names. They had meaning.
So I began to photograph them. In January 2025, I formally began this fine art photography series, inspired by those early botanical illustrators and the quiet marvels surrounding me. Not in sweeping landscapes, but up close—as portraits. As tributes. As invitations to look more closely. In 1919, horticulturalist Charles Saunders wrote, "A humiliating fact in connection with our California wildflowers, is the average Californian's own indifference to them. Not only does he not know their names, he does not even see them." My hope is to help people see. First their beauty. Then their value. Then their role in the living, breathing system that surrounds us all.
Botanica Californica
