karl blossfeldt inspired

in interviews, when i am asked, i often credit contemporary artist Lisa Congdon as my inspiration for STILL blog (and writer/illustrator Austin Kleon for giving me the motivation). but, the truth is a little older than that. ten years before discovering Lisa Congdon, before learning about andrew goldsworthy, and even, gasp, before instagram . . . i discovered artist karl blossfeldt while visiting my best friend in rural tennessee.  her new fiancé had posters of karl blossfeldt framed in his living room. i immediately gave her my permission to marry him (which she eventually did). i fell immediately in love with blossfeldt. and have carried on a surreptitious and, i suppose, technically necrophilic affair with him ever since, including several episodes during which i would open up a book of blossfeldt images, despair, and decide it was time to give up my art, because i was a total hack.

wild teasel leaf (dried)