Copy of Extract of a Letter, 1845

Extract of a Letter, 1845

This installation originated from a series of workshops entitled Crafting Magic, initially designed and led by Neil Mulholland, then modified by Neven Lochhead, Maria Simmons, Jung-Ah Kim, and me.

The exhibition, Crafting Magic, curated by Neven Lochhead, took place in September, 2025 at The Station @ Tamworth Central, and also featured works by Alexis Boyle (Ottawa), Liam Cole (Kingston), Gavin Day (Kingston), Jung-Ah Kim (Kingston), Maria Simmons (Montréal), Chantal LeBlanc (Roblin Lake), Linda Howes (Tamworth), Andrea Malus (Kingston), Neil Mulholland (Edinburgh) and Gonçalo Sena (Lisbon)

The program was commissioned by Carolyn Butts with generous support from Tamworth Central and Virginianne.

More information about the Crafting Magic workshop system can be found here.

My piece expands upon my research into the work of Mary Somerville and her use of plant-based photographic emulsions.

I was inspired by Maria Simmons's use of local flora in Version II of the workshop, Fermenting. I began making anthotype prints using plants picked from roadsides and fields in Tamworth. Anthotypes are a precursor to the familiar cyanotype, or sun-print; however, the emulsion is made with photosensitive plant extracts. This process, informed by Mary Somerville's research on photosensitive plant emulsion and light sensitivity, led to advances in photographic methods. However, because Somerville was a woman living in 19th-century England, she was not permitted to publish her work. Instead, her contributions were published by her collaborator and fellow scientist, John Herschel, who, despite acknowledging the work as Somerville’s, is often given solo credit for creating these techniques.

The anthotypes I made were a vibrant green when they first came out of the fixative bath, but quickly faded. I photographed them, then hung them in the gallery space, expecting them to disappear (like a magic trick!) within a couple of weeks. Some vanished completely, others retained ghostly traces of the original images. For me, the fugitive nature of the prints added another layer of metaphor to our theme of crafting magic that speaks to unseen actions or diverted attention, as well as issues of stability in both human memory and material archives. My prints also acknowledge the work of Mary Somerville and nod to the often uncredited technical and scientific contributions of women.

I set up my installation to evoke the vibe of a table in a busy research lab, spread with plants, notes, grid paper, bottles of emulsion, and pellets made from the plant solids left behind after filtering the emulsion. Game pieces, pins, and other magical charms were embedded in these pellets, hinting at the magic in scientific discovery. I included a copy of the article “VIII. On the Action of the Rays of the Spectrum on Vegetable Juices. Extract of a Letter from Mrs. M. Somerville to Sir J. F. W. Herschel, Bart., Dated Rome, September 20, 1845. Communicated by Sir J. Herschel.” This article was originally published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. I also created a short, looped animation, Timed Exposure (2025), by editing the photos I took of the fresh prints, as well as some of the plants used to make them.

More information about the Crafting Magic workshop system can be found here.