The Poet’s Herbarium
A watercolor and cut paper collection, inspired by the flowers - and the poems - of Emily Dickinson
Pressed flowers are little acts of devotion - a decision, made in a single moment - that this beauty deserves to last.
Emily Dickinson felt that too. She spent years pressing and labeling hundreds of flowers by hand - quietly, carefully, the way she did everything. She saw what I see: that a bloom holds as much meaning as a poem.
The Poet's Herbarium is my homage to her. Ten original watercolor and cut paper collages, each one rooted in a flower she loved and wrote about.
Pale purples, butter yellows, blush and deep plum - all layered against warm, tea-stained grounds that feel like old paper and older poems. Every petal cut by hand. Every piece one of a kind, framed and ready to hang.
Made to last. Just like she intended.
Collect an Original Painting
Layer by Tiny Layer
Every piece starts with watercolor and ends with a lot of tiny scissors. In between - pressing, cutting, layering, and a fair amount of holding-my-breath while placing a single petal exactly where it needs to go. Worth it every time. ✨
All It Takes Is a Clover and a Bee
Three paintings rooted in the same quiet truth - that the simplest things are secretly the most alive.
This one has the bee. ☺️
Two bold magenta-plum clover blooms, every single petal hand-cut and layered in collage, green leaves scattered across white - and one small, important bee, her wings rendered in delicate vellum so they catch the light just so.
In the poem, Dickinson observes that the bee doesn't concern herself with the clover's lineage. Clover is clover. It is aristocracy simply by being what it is. I love that. There's something quietly reassuring about a poet noticing that beauty doesn't need a pedigree.
A small piece with a big, gentle kind of confidence.
Size: 5 × 7 inches (image) | Framed: 9 × 9 inches
Medium: Original watercolor and cut paper collage
Frame: Warm Wood 9 × 9 shadow box - ready to hang
One of a kind: Yes - this is an original, one-of-a-kind work
There is a light that only exists in spring. You know it when you see it. It doesn't last.
This is the most abundant piece in the collection - a full garden, all at once. Clover, lilac, daisy, buttercup, and foxglove together on a warm sepia ground, each flower rendered in soft watercolor and then given dimension with cut paper petals and leaves. Pale purples, gentle yellows, white, and deep magenta - a whole season caught in a single breath.
Dickinson wrote that this particular spring light is something science cannot overtake, but human nature feels. That's exactly what this piece is reaching for - not a record of flowers, but the feeling of them. All together, all at once.
Made for a wall that needs a little light.
Size: 11 x 14 inches (image) | Framed: 11 x 14 inches
Medium: Original watercolor and cut paper collage
Frame: White 11 x 14 shadow box - ready to hang
One of a kind: Yes - this is an original, one-of-a-kind work
No bee required. Just the clover and the revery.
This small, vivid piece is the companion to "The Pedigree of Honey" - and the quieter of the two. Where that piece hums with activity, this one holds still. Deep magenta-plum clover blooms glow against white, every tiny petal individually cut and layered in collage, with bright green leaves and a small vellum tag that reads simply: and revery.
Dickinson's complete poem is only five lines - and this is her whole point. A meadow doesn't require much. Neither does wonder. The bee is optional.
A perfect piece for a reading nook, a desk, or anywhere you do your best thinking.
Size: 5 × 7 inches (image) | Framed: 9 × 9 inches
Medium: Original watercolor and cut paper collage
Frame: Warm Wood 9 × 9 shadow box - ready to hang
One of a kind: Yes - this is an original, one-of-a-kind work
Inspired by a poet, a garden, and her pressed herbarium.
Studies in Yellow.
Three paintings. One palette. A color Dickinson said nature saves for sunsets - and for this.
Small. Sunny. Quietly full of everything.
Pale yellow buttercup blooms in soft watercolor, with individually cut petals layered over the painted surface - and a small vellum tag, tucked in among the leaves, that reads: everlasting.
Dickinson's poem is about choosing poetry over prose - making your home out of imagination rather than limitation. It's one of her most beloved, and for good reason. This piece tries to hold that same feeling: something small and bright and alive that is somehow also endless.
A perfect piece for a creative space, a child's room, or anywhere that could use a little more possibility in it.
Size: 5 × 7 inches (image) | Framed: 9 × 9 inches
Medium: Original watercolor and cut paper collage
Frame: White or Blue 9 × 9 shadow box - ready to hang
One of a kind: Yes - this is an original, one-of-a-kind work
Spring arrives with an offer you can't refuse.
This is one of the larger pieces in the collection - and one of the most joyful. Two daffodils in warm butter yellow rise against a sepia-toned background that glows like warming soil, like the first real day you can feel the season shifting. The collage layers in the long, elegant leaves and, floating softly overhead, a delicate cabbage butterfly mid-passage.
The poem it's named for is pure Dickinson - an offer to sell a flower, immediately undermined by her own admission that she could never quite bring herself to do it. This piece understands that completely. Some things just want to be given, not sold.
A piece for anyone who counts down to the first daffodil of the year. You know who you are.
Size: 11 × 14 inches (image) | Framed: 11 x 14 inches
Medium: Original watercolor and cut paper collage
Frame: White 11 x 14 shadow box - ready to hang
One of a kind: Yes - this is an original, one-of-a-kind work
Yellow is the rarest color in nature, Dickinson says. Saved for sunsets. Spent scantly and selectly - like a lover's words.
This small buttercup study is a quiet celebration of exactly that - the soft, selective magic of yellow. Pale blooms in butter and yellow-green watercolor, with individual petals cut and layered in collage, all set against a clean white ground.
It's a companion to "I Dwell in Possibility" - the same palette, the same intimate scale - but with its own distinct feeling.
Lovely on its own, and beautiful alongside its companion piece.
Size: 5 × 7 inches (image) | Framed: 9 × 9 inches
Medium: Original watercolor and cut paper collage
Frame: White or Blue 9 × 9 shadow box - ready to hang
One of a kind: Yes - this is an original, one-of-a-kind work
"Nobody knows this little Rose" by Emily Dickinson
Nobody knows this little Rose—
It might a pilgrim be
Did I not take it from the ways
And lift it up to thee.
Only a Bee will miss it—
Only a Butterfly,
Hastening from far journey—
On its breast to lie—
Only a Bird will wonder—
Only a Breeze will sigh—
Ah Little Rose—how easy
For such as thee to die!
Just Before.
Two lilacs. Two poems. One feeling - the ache of beauty that hasn't quite arrived yet.
Some things are worth waiting for. Lilacs are one of them.
This piece captures that particular ache of late spring - the moment just before summer arrives, when the lilacs are still heavy on the branch and everything feels full of quiet promise. Pale purple blooms rendered in soft watercolor, with pressed lilac petals and leaves layered in as collage - some blooms tucked close to the stem, others drifting gently outward.
Emily Dickinson knew this feeling well. She tended her garden at the Homestead with deep care, and lilacs were among her most beloved flowers - in the garden and on the page. A warm sepia cameo oval grounds the composition, giving the whole piece the feeling of something treasured and kept. Like a pressed flower slipped between the pages of a favorite book.
It's a piece that feels like anticipation. And somehow, like arrival too.
Size: 9 × 12 inches (image) | Framed: 11 x 14 inches
Medium: Original watercolor and cut paper collage
Frame: Warm Wood 11 x 14 shadow box - ready to hang
One of a kind: Yes - this is an original, one-of-a-kind work
There is something almost dreamlike about lilacs in full bloom. All that fragrance. All that color. They arrive like a small celebration and leave before you're ready.
This piece leans into that feeling - soft watercolor washes of pale purple, with delicate pressed lilac blooms arranged across the surface, some nestled close and others drifting away from the stem, as if carried on a gentle current.
Dickinson wrote of a lilac sea - a sweep of color so full it felt like water. The warm sepia background here gives everything a softly aged quality, like a letter you've read so many times the paper has gone golden. Light, luminous, and quietly unforgettable.
A piece for anyone who has ever stood next to a lilac bush and just... stayed there for a while.
Size: 9 × 12 inches (image) | Framed: 11 x 14 inches
Medium: Original watercolor and cut paper collage
Frame: Warm Wood 11 x 14 shadow box - ready to hang
One of a kind: Yes - this is an original, one-of-a-kind work
“A Light exists in Spring
Not present on the Year,
At any other period -
When March is scarcely here”
―Emily Dickinson