PRURIENT APPARITION

2009
30.5 x 37.5”
Watercolor, gesso, gold point and graphite on 300 lb. paper

John Ruskin called orchids a prurient aparition. Prurient means having lascivious or lustful thoughts, desires, etc. Ruskin observed the orchid’s sensual structure. The connection between the structure of the vertebrate and the shape of orchids was pointed out by a woman who spent a long time looking at my piece, “Alluvion.” She called the vertebrates orchids. My Tu-T’u’s white kid glove and mom’s high school compact suggest femininity. Pearls and trinkets symbolize the beauty that women desire Trinkets seen, orchids unseen?

Please visit ww.elizabethreed.net to see the other “excavations.”