Bridget Beth Collins doesn’t go to the store to get her art supplies—she simply goes outside. The Seattle artist, also known as the Flora Forager, collects almost all of her foliage and flowers from the sidewalks, meadows, and woods around her Pacific Northwest neighborhood and rearranges them into beautiful compositions. Her artworks depict picturesque landscapes and animals, from the tsunami in Katsushika Hokusai's ‘The Great Wave at Kanagawa’ to a fire-spewing dragon.
Collins started Flora Forager seven years ago, but she didn’t get her big break until she started uploading her garden-inspired compositions onto Instagram. She forages all year round, using a diverse materials palette from colorful silk petals to mushrooms and pine needles.
“One of the reasons I like doing Flora Forager is because naturally I think life is kind of bleak, Collins said in an interview with Garden Collage. “I have a lot of fear of people and circumstances. But you can walk into a garden and flowers are beautiful; every season you can always find something to give you light. I think throughout the years, with different struggles, I’ve gone into my garden and the flowers speak to me. We’re still growing, we’ve died, and we’ve come back. We can do that too. Flowers and nature mean everything to me.”
Related: Artist Ignacio Aracil transforms pressed flowers into ephemeral sculptures
You can follow Collins’ works on Instagram or purchase her compositions on her website.
Via My Modern Met, Garden Collage
Images via Flora Forager
