Featured Artist Elizabeth Bruders

Artist Elizabeth Bruders shares a stunning collection of photographic montages of flowers frozen in ice. See more of her work on her website.

 

 

I’m a mother of seven, whose photographic journey had its beginnings in capturing memories of my children together. Another creative outlet for me while caring for seven busy little ones, was decorating our home with flowers. They brought the beauty of the outdoors inside and created a peaceful and inspiring space for my family.

 

 

As I continued to make our house a home, I focused on learning to landscape with flowers. I developed a hidden secret garden tucked behind our house. This outdoor haven didn’t have room for my children to run, but it proved to be the perfect place to sit and soak up the warmth of the sun, or watch a sunset as the vibrant colors painted the sky.

 

 

As you can imagine, caring for seven young children can be challenging, and sometimes chaotic! In the midst of this busyness, I cherished the occasional quiet moments I could spend in my garden retreat.

 

 

These moments of refection taught me the value of finding beauty and hope in varying circumstances. This principle carried me through the years of raising my wonderful family. And it helped me with numerous challenges I’ve faced in my own life. Now I try to capture this hope in my Flowers in Ice photographs.

 

 

We all know that flowers are naturally beautiful and complex, but floral photos have become fairly commonplace. My Flowers in Ice series is an attempt to capture the vibrancy of flowers in a harsh environment. This illustrates that beauty and hope still exist within hardship, or even just the day-to-day chaos of life.

 

 

Part of what draws me to work with frozen flowers is the mystery of never really knowing what the freezing process will do to the delicate blossoms.

 

 

Every time I open the freezer, I’m excited to see what my experiment of collaborating with nature has produced. It is always a new and unexpected surprise!

 

 

The fragile flowers are now solidified. They are surrounded by small bubbles of oxygen that have been pushed out of the petals during this immense transformation. Each experiment creates a little frozen world with unpredictable details and beauty. This draws me in to explore and discover what has transpired.

 

 

My Flowers in Ice series has taken on a new dimension for me after battling cancer in 2020. I learned firsthand how circumstances, both good and bad, shape us into who we are today—changed, but still beautiful and stronger than ever.

 

 

The photographs remind me that beauty can come out of suffering. They help me look carefully for hope in the midst of difficult circumstances, and bring joy to my heart when I’m struggling under uncertainty. My dream for the future is to continue using my talents to capture the wonder of our natural world so we can look for the little moments of beauty surrounding us each day.

 

Artist Elizabeth Bruders invites you to follow her on Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest and Etsy.

 

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