House of Linnaea
Wearable Herbaria by Megan Kirkpatrick
House of Linnaea is a nod to the Linnaean system of naming and classifying plants and animals. It is a dreamt up through my background in and passion for botanical study and my love of the natural world. My feelings and perceptions of life cycles are a major theme of my work. I collect my own mineral specimens, bones, botanicals and most of my insects myself and through the process of electroplating, I capture that moment in time in copper forever as a specimen to wear or display.
My Process
Electroplating allows me to translate botanical forms into lasting artifacts. Through the gradual layering of metal, natural specimens are transformed into wearable sculptures that reflect life cycles and a love of the natural world. Copper is slowly dissolved into an ionic solution, where an electrical current guides it back into solid form, slowly building a metal skin around the specimen. I am able to capture perfect details that are lost in plant pressing and this makes not only for a beautiful piece of wearable art, but it creates a three-dimensional specimen from nature that I call “Wearable Herbaria”.
About Me
I am a completely self-taught electroforming artist. Before embarking on this portion of my life I worked as a field scientist, mostly doing botanical surveys. Electroplating fascinated me as a means of preserving botanical specimens in their three-dimensional form and in 2019 I taught myself to electroplate. Since then I have poured thousands of hours every year into my craft. Electroplating in and of itself is not difficult but doing it well is and I have spent the last 7 years pouring myself into this art form. I'm very proud of my clean botanical forms and my signature patina style. I occasionally source items from other ethical collectors such as stones that I find particularly beautiful, but in general I source all of my plants, minerals, bones and insects myself by hand. The mineral and precious gem market is full of ethical issues, both in terms of human rights and environmental damage. I feel the same about insect and bone collection.This is why in general I only work with items I collect myself or source from other local collectors. It is a core tenant of my work.
I was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest where I still live today, always with a dog by my side.