Gallery: Hillary Waters Fayle's Portraits of Place

For her Portraits of Place series, artist and professor Hillary Waters Fayle collects botanical material—thousands of petals, leaves, and seeds—from various neighborhoods and gardens. She then dries them, arranges them in elaborate patterns, and fixes them to clear acrylic. When each arrangement is done, she makes a cyanotype print, which uses the power of the sun to dye the intricate mandalas onto watercolor paper. Fayle says this reimagining of an ecosystem can be powerful. “Every hand that tended a vegetable or picked a flower, every bird that dropped a seed, every animal that grazed is a part of this land’s—and this mandala’s—story,” she says. “When we understand that all things on this planet are connected, we care for it in a different way.”

PRIVATE RESIDENCE, RICHMOND, VA

GRACE FARMS FOUNDATION, NEW CANAAN, CT

HORTUS BOTANICAL GARDEN & ARBORETUM, STONE RIDGE, NY

CHISMAN CREEK PARK, TIDEWATER, VA