POETRY IN SILVER: THE LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS IN THE WORKS OF EMILY DICKINSON 

In celebration of ASBA's 25th Anniversary, the Botanical Art Society of the National Capitol Region will present a public lecture by ASBA Award-winning BASNCR artist Kandy Vermeer Phillips at the U.S. Botanic Garden on June 2 at 1:30 pm.

Poetry in Silver: The Language of Flowers in the Works of Emily Dickinson is an ongoing series of silverpoint drawings that compares specimens found in Dickinson’s herbarium to those housed in the U.S. National Herbarium. Dickinson collected her specimens in the 1840’s from the woods, fields and bogs that surrounded her Amherst, MA home as part of her formal botany education. Poetry in Silver highlights several of these cherished woodland flowers that inspired Dickinson’s poetry along with her use of the popular Language of Flowers. Silverpoint drawing is a Renaissance technique and is ideal for close observational botanical drawing. A silverpoint drawing’s unique tendency to develop a patina over time also provides a metaphor for a plant’s evolving environmental status from the mid-19thcentury to the present day. Although Dickinson’s herbarium is now over 175 years old, it continues to speak, and remains a significant part of her letter to the world. 

Kandy Vermeer Phillips has been drawing with silverpoint since the 1970’s. This presentation is the result of her recent Julius I. Brown Award from the American Society of Botanical Artists.  Kandy’s silverpoint drawings are included in the collections of The Emily Dickinson Museum, Amherst, MA; The Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation, Pittsburgh, PA; The National Gallery of Art, and The National Museum of Natural History, Botany Department, Washington, DC.