The Captivating World of Cig Harvey

Photography

Maine-based photographer Cig Harvey is interested in the connection between life and death, the experience of living. The passing of time and the natural surroundings of her rural home have made her alert to the magic in the mundane.

Words and Photos by Cig Harvey

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Images and text from Cig Harvey’s Blue Violet (Phaidon) and Emerald Drifters (Monacelli) bring together lush photography, drawings, and poetic writing in deeply personal, richly saturated meditations on life through color.

Flowers

are

‍ ‍ the ears

of a plant

When flowers listen to records of caterpillars munching, they release a spicy mustard oil as a warning. Flowers can also release a sweet nectar upon hearing the song of a bee to seduce them. Audio creates vibrations that plants can decode. Thomas Edison invented the phonograph even though he was deaf. If you plug your ears and bite into the side of a record player, you will be able to listen to the music through the sound vibrations, just like he did.

It’s a well-known fact that flowers love to be talked to. But recent studies show flowers flourish more when in conversation with women than with men. Evening primroses, known for aiding with menopause and girly bits in general, adore female vocalists. Evening primroses love to sing. At night, just as they bloom, they harmonize a cappella, “I’ve Got the Songs Inside of Me.” Scientists have found that primroses release 20 percent more pollen when listening to Beyoncé’s “Lemonade” because her voice produces sounds like the beating of a bee’s wing.

• A playlist for an evening primrose

  Tina Turner
  I Can’t Stand the Rain

  PJ Harvey
  The Last Living Rose

  Dolly Parton
  Wildflowers

  Adele
  Rolling in the Deep

  Joan Armatrading
  Love and Affection

  Kate Bush
  Cloudbursting

  The Pretenders
  Hymn to Her

  Joni Mitchell
  The Hissing Sound of Summer Lawns

  Lady Gaga & Ariana Grande
  Rain on Me

  Lizzo
  Juice

  P!nk
  Blow Me (One Last Kiss)

  Sia
  Alive

  Whitney Houston
  My Love Is Your Love

  Alicia Keys & Brandi Carlile
  Beautiful Noise

  Lana Del Rey
  Happiness Is a Butterfly

  Nina Simone
  Beautiful Land

Driving Scout to school this morning, the maples were dropping their pollen, and it was as if the sun had shattered onto the dark tarmac. This yellow is flaming Baked Alaska. Each mouthful is a jolt to the central nervous system. A combination of flavors and textures, hot and cold, soft and crunchy, rich and light, sweet and salty. Every bite, a blend of your greatest love and your worst heartbreak.

Look at

‍ ‍ this.

‍ ‍ Experience

‍ ‍ this.

Feel

‍ ‍‍ ‍ this.

For my birthday, Doug builds a trellis around our front door, and I plant my favorite flowers—honeysuckle, roses, and clematis—to climb all over it. By the following July, the entranceway is so alive with bees that Scout and I have to run through it to avoid getting stung. By late summer, it’s like walking through the wide-open mouth of a rainbow to enter the chaos of the mudroom. In Maine, the mudroom is the altar of the home. Among the multicolored offerings of keys, shoes, pens, sunglasses, coins, wallets, hats, scarves, bags and business cards, are the piles of Things that Scout has outgrown, Things that need to be mended, and Things that need to be returned. The divine is in the everyday objects that make a beautiful life: a camera, a pink hairbrush, a black schoolbag thrown on the floor spewing out crumpled notes, a half-eaten jam sandwich, and Scarlet’s orange lead on top of Doug’s indigo felt slippers, threadbare, from when he rubs his feet together talking on the phone.

Years ago, over a cafeteria lasagna, I asked an astronaut what was the most beautiful sight he had ever seen. He thought for a moment and then said, my wife, Vicki’s, blue eyes. In times of trauma and crisis, all you wish for is an ordinary Tuesday where nothing really happens. Beauty is in the commonplace.

Be here now.

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Discover the deliciously sensory world of Cig Harvey at cigharvey.com