Spontaneous growers are plants that make their own paths, find ways to thrive in difficult conditions, and are not constrained by artificial boundaries, aka “weeds.” There is no biological definition of a weed, only a value judgment that they aren’t where they belong and that they aren’t wanted.

All of the plants that I used for this project grow on the side of the road in close proximity to my home. I make the cyanotypes on the sidewalk in front of my house, and sometimes literally in the street as I follow the available patches of sunlight. I run around getting everything in place, baffling my neighbors, trying to race the sun as it exposes the chemicals. It is playful, exhilarating, exhausting, and transformative.

I chose to use the cyanotype process partly because I love how physical it is and partly because of its historical ties with plant identification. Almost immediately upon its invention, Anna Atkins started using cyanotype to categorize and identify plants. But unlike a traditional taxonomy that provides omniscient knowledge from above, I seek to create a more feminist type of taxonomy that offers a web of self-knowledge and self-definition.

I say self-knowledge, because I also see myself and my own queerness in these hardy and imperfect plants. I think about queerness in the context of the Bell Hooks quote, “'queer' as being about the self that is at odds with everything around it and that has to invent and create and find a place to speak and to thrive and to live.”
​
These plants and I do not sit neatly in the boxes that society provides for us. We forge our own paths, seek the sunshine, and find ways to thrive on our own terms.