The NYC Wildflower Alphabet is a series of twenty-six colored pencil drawings on paper.
They were first exhibited in the ROOTS/ANCHORS exhibition at the Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art in Snug Harbor on Staten Island, 2021.
Katie Holten made a limited edition & signed series of seed packets containing seeds of the four wildflowers that spell LOVE - Lovegrass, Orange Milkweed, Vervain, Early Goldenrod. The open pollinated seeds were collected by Patrick Over and the Greenbelt Native Plant Center, 2021.
People are invited to plant wildflower seeds. Sprinkle love around the city. Plant love.
What world are you dreaming of?
We are a species motivated by love. Katie Holten has created a Wildflower Alphabet for New York City, with drawings of 26 native wildflowers, one for each letter of the Latin alphabet.
Visitors to the exhibition are invited to take seeds of the four wildflowers that spell LOVE to plant around the city. This could be the beginning of seeding stories to our future selves, planting secret messages with native wildflowers, replanting the city during a time of anxiety and Climate Emergency.
Katie Holten invites participants to write Letters to the Earth that could take the form of personal stories, poems, words, or planted messages to the future. Together, we will create a vision of a better world to share with political leaders as they meet at COP26.
What people have to say right now; matters. What people have to say right now; might just help us get to the new world that we need. What message would you plant?
Wildflower Alphabet, work in progress, 2021
Wildflower Alphabet, installing at Snug Harbour, 2021
B = Blackeyed Susan, pencil on paper, 2021
I = Iris, pencil on paper, 2021
Wildflower Seeds (LOVE), limited edition seed packets, 2021
Wildflower Seeds (LOVE), 2021