Leah Sobsey, American born 1973, and Amanda Marchand, Canadian born 1972, active NY,
at the Brandywine Museum, Chadds Ford, PA in 2025
The American poet, Emily Dickinson, 1830-1886, who lived in Amherst, Massachusetts all her life, created a herbarium (scrapbook) to preserve 400 of the flowers and plants she grew and found on her walks.
She was known during her lifetime not for her poetry but for her garden and her knowledge of botany.
She began her herbarium – dried flowers and leaves and other plants such as ferns – annotated and mounted on paper – when she was 14. Her herbarium exists still but may be viewed only in digital form.
Red Day Lily, Emily at age 14 – negative; archival print from original anthotype on paper. © Amanda Marchand and Leah Sobsey
Leah Sobsey and Amanda Marchand have used the poet’s herbarium to re-create the poet’s floral world: 66 pages using 66 plants which they grew in their gardens, matching the flowers which the poet grew.
They began this work during the Covid pandemic. It took 3 years until 2023.
Emily Dickinson Herbarium Page on the left; on the right, a digital image in an emulsion of poppy. © Amanda Marchand and Leah Sobsey
Chromotaxy:
is a word created by the artists. It means a chromatic taxonomy based on the first line of one of the poet’s poems. Each chromotaxy is a varying number of panels of colour made from the pure pigment of individual flowers and plants: their petals, root scrapings.
The creation of the constituent colours of a chromotaxy to reflect the first line of a poem was entirely the artists’ choice.
Anthotypes: extracting pigment from plants.
This was a process discovered in Victorian England at the height of the floriological craze: pigments from plants are extracted by crushing plant material using mortar and pestle; and mixing it with alcohol. The resulting light-sensitive emulsion is painted on paper.
Capturing the poet’s plant images:
To recreate the images of the herbarium plants, the artists photographed pages of Emily Dickenson’s herbarium to make a negative or positive print.
These photographs were overlain on the sheets coated with plant emulsion and left in sunshine for days, months even.
Eventually, the sun bleaches out the parts of the paper not covered, leaving an imprint of the object in the color of the pigmen: a sun print.
Because emulsions fade quickly, the artists made digital scans of each page of the scanned herbarium immediately after each had been exposed.
They did the same for each plant they grew and placed on the plant emulsion obtained from the plants.
A leaf from Dickinson’s herbarium and that leaf reproduced using a plant emulsion of pokeweed.
Detail of Pokeweed-Herbarium Plate 42. © Amanda Marchand and Leah Sobsey
The artists created
– a chromatic taxonomy (‘chromotaxy’) of the pure pigment of flowers and other plants to match the first line of some poems
– a sun print of each page of the poet’s herbarium
– a sun print of the 66 flowers and plants they grew.
This work is a second life for the floral inspiration of Emily Dickinson’s poetry.
A re-imagining of a world between house and garden and the woods and fields of Amherst;
between the poet’s writing desk and earth-under-the-nails;
between the poet’s physical, sensual, emotional-spiritual, and intellectual lives.
The legacy of these lives was her poems.
Red salvia from Dickinson’s herbarium and Red Salvia – Herbarium Plate 12. © Amanda Marchand and Leah Sobsey
Amanda Marchand and Leah Sobsey have made visible the poet’s second legacy: her painstaking, loving appreciation of her natural environment as the sustaining source of her creative energy;
and as unfailing companion, time keeper, and safe harbour of her life.
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The Earthen Door
We go no further to the Dust
Than to the earthen Door –
And then the Panels are reversed –
And we behold – no more
Emily Dickinson
A chromotaxy in browns made from the pure pigments of among other plants:
aster, clematis, clover, creeping buttercup, daisy, dandelion, daylily, fuschia, honeysuckle, Indian paintbrush, lavender, magnolia, orange jewelweed, potato flower, sage, scarlet trumpet cherry, and zinnia. © Amanda Marchand and Leah Sobsey
132 pigments used in the exhibition and made from flowers, fruits and other plants like ferns grown in the artists’ own gardens. © Amanda Marchand and Leah Sobsey
The poet’s flowers
Roses are the flower which the poet mentions most in her poetry. Daisies, buttercups, clover and daffodils follow.
The Dickinson sisters used flower names for themselves and each other. The poet often called herself ‘Daisy’. Her sisters were: Cow Lily (now daylily), and Pond Lily.
The colour which the artist mentions most is purple and it is thought that she had a ‘purple garden’ in her garden.
For the colour purple the artists included emulsions from these flowers: blackberry, blackcurrant, damask rose, dianthus, elderberry, lavender, orange oriental poppy, pomegranate, purple garden phlox, purple impatiens, purple petunia, purple stock, purple verbena, raspberry, red geranium, red tea rose, and red currant.
The poet mentions the colour blue often: the rarest of flower colours. The artists have used pigments of blue delphinium, purple columbine, purple iris, purple pansy, purple hyacinth to represent the poet’s blues.
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Emily Dickinson was known first for her skills as a gardener. Only 10 of her poems were published during her lifetime.
The poet’s poems are peopled with her flowers.
She would have known not only the physical properties and life cycles of these flowers but also the symbolic meaning associated with them from Classical and Biblical and folkloric sources.
A Slash of Blue
A slash of Blue —
A sweep of Gray —
Some Scarlet patches on the way,
Compose an Evening Sky —
A little purple — slipped between —
Some Ruby trousers hurried on —
A Wave of Gold —
A Bank of Day —
This just makes out the Morning Sky.
Emily Dickinson
Purple Columbine – Herbarium Plate 61; archival pigment print from original anthotype on paper. © Amanda Marchand and Leah Sobsey
Blue Delphinium – Herbarium Plate 35; archival pigment print from original anthotype on paper. © Amanda Marchand and Leah Sobsey
Purple pansy – Herbarium Plate 54, archival pigment print from original anthotype on paper. © Amanda Marchand and Leah Sobsey
Purple – is fashionable twice –
Purple – is fashionable twice –
This season of the year,
And when a soul perceives itself
To be an Emperor.
Emily Dickinson
Purple, the most difficult colour for the human eye to distinguish, is mentioned in 52 of Emily Dickinson’s poems.
This chromotaxy includes these plants grown by the poet: blackberry, black currant, dianthus, damask rose, elderberry, lavender, orange oriental poppy, pomegranate, purple garden phlox, purple impatiens, purple petunia, purple stock, purple verbena, raspberry, red geranium, red tea rose, and red currant. © Amanda Marchand and Leah Sobsey
Purple Hyacinth – Herbarium Plate ?, archival original print from original anthotype on paper. © Amanda Marchand and Leah Sobsey
Purple Anemone – Herbarium Plate 56, archival original print from original anthotype on paper. © Amanda Marchand and Leah Sobsey
Purple petunia – Herbarium Plate 8; archival pigment print from original anthotype on paper. © Amanda Marchand and Leah Sobsey
Christmas cactus – Herbarium Plate 64; archival pigment print from original anthotype on paper. © Amanda Marchand and Leah Sobsey
Maroon snapdragon – Herbarium Plate 32; archival pigment print from original anthotype on paper. © Amanda Marchand and Leah Sobsey
Yellow Marigold – Herbarium Plate 4; archival pigment print from original anthotype on paper. © Amanda Marchand and Leah Sobsey
The Colour of a Queen is This
The Colour of a Queen is this-
The Colour of the Sun
At setting – this and Amber
Beryl-and this at Noon –
And when at night -Auroran widths
Fling suddenly on men –
‘Tis this -and Witchcraft-nature keeps
A Rank – for Iodine –
Emily Dickinson
The chromotaxy used was marigold (top) and tomato (bottom). © Amanda Marchand and Leah Sobsey
I Hide Myself within my flower
I hide myself within my flower,
That fading from your Vase,
You, unsuspecting, feel for me –
Almost a loneliness.
Emily Dickinson
The flowers from which this chromotaxy was constructed are daisy, dandelion, daylily, ghost plant, pansy, and rose. © Amanda Marchand and Leah Sobsey
The Wind begun to rock the Grass
The wind begun to rock the grass
With threatening tunes and low, —
He flung a menace at the earth,
A menace at the sky.
Emily Dickinson (first verse only)
This represents the distribution of plants by common pollinators in 19th century Amherst.
Emily Dickinson mentioned bees in 112 of her poems.
From left to right: birds, butterflies, moths, bees, wasps, wind, and beetles. © Amanda Marchand and Leah Sobsey
Purple common foxglove – Herbarium Plate 13; archival pigment print from original anthotype on paper. © Amanda Marchand and Leah Sobsey
The Colour of the Grave is Green
The Colour of the Grave is Green
The Outer Grave – I mean –
You would not know it from the Field –
Except it own a Stone –
Emily Dickinson was much affected while young by the death of friends and members of her family.
Green is the quickest natural pigment to fade and here represents loss and transience.
The pigments for this chromotaxy were drawn from basil, blue hydrangea, cinnamon fern, green pea, interrupted fern, maple, maroon snapdragon, onion, purple tulip, purple verbena, and sage. © Amanda Marchand and Leah Sobsey
Purple Verbena- Herbarium Plate 60; archival pigment print from original anthotype on paper. © Amanda Marchand and Leah Sobsey
Interrupted fern – Herbarium Plate 41; archival pigment print from original anthotype on paper. © Amanda Marchand and Leah Sobsey
Blazing in Gold and quenching in purple
Blazing in Gold and quenching in Purple
Leaping like Leopards to the Sky
Then at the feet of the old Horizon
Laying her spotted Face to die
Stooping as low as the Otter’s Window
Touching the Roof and tinting the Barn
Kissing her Bonnet to the Meadow
And the Juggler of Day is gone.
Emily Dickinson
This is for lavender which is the flower most widely grown in Massachusetts.
The pure colours here are from elderberry and lavender. © Amanda Marchand and Leah Sobsey
Nobody Knows this Little Rose
A Rose,
A sepal, petal, and a thorn
Upon a common summer’s morn,
A flash of dew, a bee or two,
A breeze, a caper in the trees –
And I’m a rose!
Emily Dickinson
In the poet’s garden grew 10 varieties of roses, both rose trees and climbing varieties. The rose is the flower most frequently quoted in Emily Dickinson’s poetry.
This chromotaxy was made by the artists from the red tea and damask roses and a variety of wild roses grown by the artists. © Amanda Marchand and Leah Sobsey
Pink Wild Rose – Herbarium Plate 5; archival pigment print from original anthotype on paper. © Amanda Marchand and Leah Sobsey
To make a prairie
To make a prairie it takes a clover
and one bee,
One clover and a bee.
And revery.
The revery alone will do,
If bees are few.
Emily Dickinson
Pigments of 47 plants grown by Emily Dickinson which are classified as self-compatible species: those which can use their own pollen to fertilize their own seeds. © Amanda Marchand and Leah Sobsey
Wild Strawberry – Herbarium Plate 1; archival pigment print from original anthotype on paper. © Amanda Marchand and Leah Sobsey
The colour white
Emily Dickinson seems to have loved white more than any other colour.
Not only was her habitual name for herself ‘Daisy’,
but her totemic flower is the all-white ghost flower which she called ‘a preferred flower of life’.
The Only Ghost I Ever Saw
The only ghost I ever saw
Was dressed in mechlin, –so;
He wore no sandal on his foot,
And stepped like flakes of snow.
His gait was soundless, like the bird,
But rapid, like the roe;
His fashions quaint, mosaic,
Or, haply, mistletoe…….
Emily Dickenson (first verse only)
A chromotaxy of ghost flower. © Amanda Marchand and Leah Sobsey
The ghost plant or corpse plant or Indian pipe, (Monoflora uniflora). Photo from the web.
It is most often pure white and makes no chlorophyll. It is not a fungus. It is parasitic, acquiring nutrients through the activity of one species of myccorhizal fungi. It grows in very restricted temperate conditions, often in near darkness, in almost all parts of the US except the Rockies; and also in temperate areas of South America and Asia.
Always discreet, the poet became reclusive in her mid-30’s. She maintained a large correspondence, but she avoided physical contact with other than her family.
She took to wearing white clothes in her 30’s.
This was in the White of the Year
This was in the White of the Year
That was in the Green
Drifts were as difficult then to think
As Daisies now to be seen
Looking back is best that is left
Or if it be before
Retrospection is Prospect’s half,
Sometimes, almost more.
Emily Dickinson
This chromotaxy symbolizes the poet’s withdrawal from the world to concentrate on her meditation and poetry.
The pigments were drawn from daylily and violets. © Amanda Marchand and Leah Sobsey
Because I could not stop for death
Because I could not stop for Death –
He kindly stopped for me –
The Carriage held but just Ourselves
And Immortality.
Emily Dickinson (first verse only)
The poet died at 55 after an illness of 2 years. A week later, her sister found the almost 1,800 poems which the poet had promised she would burn; and have made her name.
Violets filled the poet’s coffin. A wild pink lady’s slipper (an orchid native to the central-east of the US) was placed at her neck.
In this chromotaxy, funeral flowers used during the 19th century are present.
Lilies were the most popular. Aster, daisy, delphinium, hydrangea, iris, marigold, poppy, rose, tulip, and violet are included here.
The darkest pigment belongs to begonia which symbolizes renewal and hope. © Amanda Marchand and Leah Sobsey
Orange oriental poppy – Herbarium plate 9; archival pigment print from original anthotype on paper. © Amanda Marchand and Leah Sobsey
