Flora as Fashion: Stacy Ellen Rich

Flora as Fashion: Stacy Ellen Rich

Throughout 2016 and 2017, I crafted 16 images in a series that I called "Home as Hat". These images where inspired by an image I shot while I was photographing Kim Shattuck from The Muffs for my "Day in the Life of a Rock 'n' Roller" series.  As we walking around her neighborhood, I had her stand in front of a lovely gabled home. I quickly saw through my lens the shape of a hat emerging from the pointed roof behind her and I excitedly snapped the shutter to capture her in front of it. It became clear in that instant that there was a new body of work waiting to be created.

I've just started to embark on a new angle to this series inspired by the wildly talented Costume designer Stacy Ellen Rich. The photograph above was taken with the intention of adding it to my Hat series but I quickly realized that the vegetation around her could be repurposed into a colorful skirt and adjusted my perspective to concentrate on what was happening below.

My desire to alter the two dimensional constraints of photography has always pushed me to expand my images into a three dimensional form. From  rephotographing portraits surrounded by ephemera as you can see in "Modern Merry Pranksters" to weaving portraits of Authors, Angles, and Apples.

I love stitching paper and I love the fashionable ladies who graciously allow me to take their portrait. I'm honored to call them my friends - they inspire me to create. Each person I encounter contains a distinctive spark I see inside that I hope to reveal to the viewer in these embroidered paper portraits.


Julie Green
March 17, 2018