ALTARS & ALCHEMY

by Jennifer Tucker

ALTARS & ALCHEMY

Hill Crystal farm and studio, a place of living my best life possible since 1983. Where seasonal meandering is food for my soul, a walking meditation to settle my spirit, or foraging for medicinal plants, leaves, flowers, roots creating inventory for a home apothecary of herbal teas, salves and elixirs to share. These forays over the land yield many other found “gifts” on my path that are carried home and placed in reverence on windowsills and shelves serving as artistic Altars in an expression of gratitude and remembering.

The digital technology equipment I use for my visionary photography expression is an Epsom flatbed scanner as a digital camera. Laying the plants directly on the glass of the scanner I intuitively seek their individual expression of gesture and sacred geometry.

Early spring walks on the farm is nature’s alchemy of daily transformation in the blink of an eye…of budburst, of new leaf growth and of tree pollens shed from flowering trees. Spring’s rebirth is both mystic and literal. 

Alchemy and Altars is a personal blend of ritual image making in my photographic Altars and Alchemy of herbal healing practices for self-transformation in myself and others.

The antique photographs, carte-de-visits, and vintage images in some of the Altars are also “found treasures” from throughout the history of photography collected over many years of shopping in antique stores in the 1970’s and 80’s as we traveled for our photographic careers. In the Altars they honor ancestry in photographic linage and women’s history in the arts.

Altars are infused with healing intentions through creative Alchemy.

Jennifer Anne Tucker