SUNFLOWERS
The sunflowers were growing around the world this summer into Fall. They bloomed in July in France, June in Italy and Spain, and here in Ohio, this October.
In France- the light is long and yellow, and the sunflowers were tight-knit weaves of floral tapestries. In Spain, the earth is grey and dry, and in the hot summer, they were already cleared away. Crops left open plots for three-year seed rotations. In Italy- it was warm, and the earth is Sienna colored, and the sunflowers had also passed by August. When I arrived back in Ohio, the sunflower field was overwatered, and they never grew.
I spent months traveling in Europe, moving from country to country on a private in public tour. Leading workshops and working with other artists. In Italian, Girasole is the name for Sunflower, a gyroscope to the sun. The flower follows the sun’s direction- akin to a sun salutation. The plant has no eyes, yet it knows where to look.
My trajectory followed the sunflower, following the sun. As an American, we stop taking pictures in the fields. “It’s so beautiful” and it is beautiful. It’s also nourishment. Oil is extracted from the seeds in France, and I’m sure in Italy and Spain. The land, commerce, and industry weave together. On the farm in Ohio, the sunflowers are for cutting- an early September bouquet distributed from farm to table. As Americans, we forget the function of things. Flowers, over function.
The sunflowers in Ohio were rotten, and I spoke to the farm manager, who told me- that the field was overwatered while I was driving on a bus in Spain from Carmona to Cordoba through dusty fields and heat. “The sunflowers were over-watered, and they are not going to come up” An entire festival arranged in the name of the sunflower, “The Sunflower Festival,” drew thousands of visitors to the location, for an abysmal showing of an empty lot. Squat and turgid flowers, no more than a foot and a half high.