Marcy Palmer’s photographs remind us to pause and look for moments of beauty amid turmoil, heartache, and uncertainty.

Since 2018, Marcy Palmer has made lush gilded photographic prints of ferns, flowers and other botanicals – personal and delicate images that you want to hold them in your hands. These glimmering, gold-leafed prints are steeped in photo-historical references - an homage to Anna Atkins and surrealist photographic pioneer Florence Henri - yet feel contemporary and fresh.

Palmer's book You Are Eternity, You Are The Mirror, which will publish in September with Yoffy Press, continues this close and quiet encounter. While in no way a salve or encouragement to look away from a world in crisis, it’s a moment to draw breath and recharge.

We caught up to discuss the shimmer and the light.

Jon Feinstein in conversation with Marcy Palmer

Jon Feinstein: How did you first conceive of this series? Did you initially anticipate the images being gilded in gold leaf and vellum?

Marcy Palmer: For years I have been taking walks along a nature trail in my neighborhood which has given me some respite, and it was something I was thinking about. For an earlier series, I had collected branches and other natural objects on those walks, and somehow this seemed to be a progression of that. I did initially envision the work as gilded and set out to learn the process.

Feinstein: For the photo nerds out there, can you describe your process from start to finish?

Palmer: I collect botanicals, figure out which ones I want to photograph and how, photograph them, manipulate them a bit digitally by converting them to black and white or doing further post-production, and make my final selections on which to print. I then print them on vellum and apply the gold leaf, varnish, and wax by hand. It can take a while to make just one print, and several things can go wrong, as with so many photographic processes.

Feinstein: What initially drew me to your work, beyond the initial shine and awe, was their conceptual and personal weight and depth. As we’ve discussed in the past, these images are about processing crises.

Palmer: I see this work as a refuge for personal and political crises. The project began with searching for and exploring the transcendent aspect of beauty and contemplating it as a necessary part of our lives. As the project developed, recognizing the counterbalance of these ideas became important too, so images like “Once Was” or “Firestorm/Time for Change” are more political, while “Carduus Nutans Sways” or “That Luscious Day” are much more about the ethereal, transcendent moments.

At the beginning of this project, I was focusing on common, often overlooked, wildflowers, and botanicals, and was interested in recognizing and elevating them by gilding them. I think that is a metaphor for moments of beauty or transcendence in life, but also for people and political change.

Feinstein: The world feels like it's increasingly fracturing and spinning out. Does that create new ways of thinking about it for you? Or is it a constant build?

Palmer: To me it seems as though reaching these moments of beauty and recognizing the work that must be done to create a better world are so important in our current times. It has been interesting to see that intersect with this project that started in 2018, and I think it has helped the work continue to evolve.

Feinstein: This question might be a bit literal, but how much does the concept, metaphor, and process of "alchemy" relate to this work?

Palmer: There is a process of transformation or alchemy that is inherent to this project through the physical piece, but also in the ideas behind it.

Feinstein: You mention the influence of writer John O'Donohue on how you think about these images. How does this play out?

Palmer: O’Donohue wrote about beauty and defined it as much more than physical qualities that most people think of when hearing the word. He defined it as a feeling of lightness or joy that can fill you, that comes in often simple moments or experiences. People experience beauty differently, and not always visually; in an interview, he described a moment of beauty experienced by listening to a piece of music during a performance. He also writes about the necessity of beauty in our lives as an antidote for times of trouble, and that intrigued me.

Feinstein: Anna Atkins is also a pivotal influence on this work.

Palmer: I love Atkins’s work, and it’s hard to escape when working with botanicals - I think that her images have been in the back of my mind for a while. I also see a visual influence of some of the surrealist photographers, in particular Florence Henri. She was interested in changing the viewer’s perspective through the manipulation of the image into an imagined or “other” space, which I relate to. It has also been significant to me that my images look as though they could be from another, earlier time period or have a classic, timeless quality to them.

Feinstein: Congratulations on your book with Yoffy Press. Did you initially see this work living as a book?

Palmer: Thank you! From the beginning, I did not see it as a book, however, working with Jennifer has been a really nice collaborative and creative process. Jennifer conceived of many aspects of the book, which has become its own beautiful object.

Feinstein: Given that the materiality of your process (gold, vellum, etc) is so central to the work, how did you make it translate to the printed page?

Palmer: We incorporated vellum overlays in parts of the book, used a gold-colored metallic ink. The construction of the book is somewhat unusual and surprising in that metallic ink is also used on the interior of the French fold binding. It is a small book that can easily fit in your hands and carries a sense of intimacy with that size.

Feinstein: The title - “You Are Eternity, You Are The Mirror” borrows from a line in Khalil Gibran’s poem - which you pair with the images throughout the book. What drew you to work with Gibran?

Palmer: The poem is about the multifaceted aspects of how beauty can be experienced, and it ultimately resides within oneself. I think that this speaks to the ideas of beauty that I am interested in, and to notions of political metaphors and empowerment.

Feinstein: While this work is, on so many levels about processing pain, uncertainty, etc, personally, I want to look at it as a metaphor for hope as well. Especially with your book coming out just before the 2020 United States presidential election...

Palmer: Yes, absolutely! I think that hope is intrinsically tied to pain as well as beauty. I have hope for a better 2021 and beyond.

Gilded Photos of Flowers – an Antidote to Crisis