Pressed Botanical Collage by Dinise Mustain

My artwork manifested in mid-Iife, but began when, as a child, I imagined living amongst the flowers. The garden spirits were as real to me as the flowers themselves. As I grew older, this passion for plants led me to create herb, flower, and vegetable gardens.

From those gardens I kept records of plants by pressing them at different stages of growth. One evening while looking out my window, a vision of a woman in the moon came to me. I dumped a couple of boxes of pressed flowers in the floor. Suddenly, White Queen Anne's Lace flowers became a moon. A woman's photograph wearing cattail fluff for hair, Monarch wings, and a flower necklace emerged from the moon. "Lady in the Moon" opened the door.

With two lovely children grown, it was safe for me to take the risk and make a dramatic lifestyle change. Thus, my life as an artist began at age 46. I quit teaching school after 19 years, started tutoring a few evenings a week, began helping my partner grow and sell organic produce, and planted a large garden, with carefully selected flowers to use in my art.

From that garden and the surrounding countryside, I collect many of the plants used in my art. I begin flowers, herbs, and grasses in greenhouses. These plants are transplanted to the many gardens around my home. I harvest, press, and store the plant material until the botanical muse emerges.

Inspiration comes from that muse, the natural world and its rhythms, float trips, walks along the Missouri River bluffs behind my house, childhood dreams, my many gardens, family, friends, and the endless love and support from my partner.

As a member of The World Wide Pressed Flower Guild and The International Pressed Flower Society I have learned the techniques used around the world to seal and preserve work that contains botanical components.

My work, like my gardens, grows wild, rich in color and texture, and each one unique. I am beginning to incorporate more complex collage elements, photographs of people I know, handmade paper, and the written word.

My desire is to explore the beauty of even the simplest plant and to use petals as a painter uses paint to create the visions I feel and see.

Dinise Mustain
10853 Smith Hatchery Rd.
Columbia, MO
e-mail Dinise Mustain

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