022: At Dawn
"A Small Psalm" Collaboration with Dawn Co.
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I shared a poem a few weeks ago through my newsletter and my friend, Danielle, reached out. We had been talking about collaborating in a way of joining together my photography and poetry with her floral arrangement pieces at some point. After I shared this poem, she felt like this would be one that she felt led to create a floral interpretation for.
Danielle graciously and generously opened her space (Dawn Co) for me to visit her for a few hours to spend time together and for me to document her creating the interpretation of my poem through florals.
I’ve always been captivated by florals. Whether it be a well-curated luxury arrangement featured at a wedding or a simple cluster of muted wildflowers lining the side of the interstate that somehow still grow in between the limestone rocks. My mom always had flowers on the kitchen table while I was growing up, my dad always sent me flowers while I was away at college, and I have a hard time not buying a discount bouquet at the store when I see one.
So when Danielle reached out about collaborating, it truly felt like a dream. I first experienced her work while shooting a wedding. I stood in the corner and was amazed at her arrangements and how she walked around with such a grace and joy. A few months passed and I ran into Danielle at another wedding and it felt like a breath of fresh air seeing her…and hearing that she had been wanting to reach out to me. It felt only right that we make something together.
As Danielle prepped the space, I documented. Loading the cameras with film that I had brought, I thought about the poem I had written, having truthfully forgotten a lot of it.
(When I write a poem, a line, a segment in my journal, the nice part about when I close the journal is that often times I just forget what I write. I write to help string my thoughts together and lead them out of swimming around and around in my head, not to sit and necessarily reflect with them. So turning back to them for any reason is always an unexpected lesson.)
Switching between the three cameras that I had brought with, I watched as Danielle brought my poem to life…in a way I could not have dreamt up myself.
As she tied the stems facing downwards, and with every flower she handpicked to include, I saw my poem grow arms and legs.
There was a story there. And I didn’t have to search for it. It naturally walked around.
Stem by stem, I was reading the poem line by line.
Watching someone else have a vision for something you felt and decided to share, is humbling and comforting. It’s a uniting feeling.
Following our collaboration, I had a free hour to sit at a coffee shop down the street until her floral workshop happening that night that I was able to photograph for her. Feeling inspired and lightened, I wrote this new poem:
A simple proclamation of my joy and inspiration at the moment, feeling blessed to call Danielle a friend and be in a place to experience her gifts.
Here’s to more collaborations this year! Sometimes there is fulfillment in simply just making something with someone else — merging and colliding gifts and perspectives otherwise limited when left to their own — having no expectation of where it will lead itself or how many eyes will consume it.
Creating it and letting it fly.
Until next time,
Madeline
PS - Visit Danielle online at Dawn-co.com or @_dawn.co