Bleach Field Project came out of an interest in so many remaining dutch names and terms in our area in Upstate NY. Words in my first language, that exist to this day. I was temporarily obsessed with the word Bleecker Street, most towns have a street by that name and I was wondering why.

“Bleken “means Crofting and “De Bleek” Or Bleekveld” was an area of grass where linen could be laid to dry, flat on the ground instead of on a line, so the sun would bleach it as white as possible, reducing the chance of yellowing of the fabric. You just don’t bleach fabric on a street..what happened!!

Simple really, farmer Bleecker who sold his land to the city of New York, must have had an ancestor Crofter in his family line who adopted or was given the surname Bleecker, representing his craft, that stuck for the ages.

I looked up paintings of bleachers and bleaching in history, loved the look of the neat shapes on the ground, became inspired, and came up with a plan.

The installation of 25 cotton squares, white and off white, gently floating above green squares of grass, separated by mowed pathways, The whole installation becoming a giant grid of green and white.

Initially, I planned to mow over and be done with it after an Open Weekend but after taking down the linen, I left the squares of long grass alone..

It was an afterthought really, I wanted to get more out of my carefully cut grid that had taken 6 weeks for the grass to be of ideal height …I couldn’t part with it yet.

Then we got the first frost in September and the landscape changed….then winter, the first snow on the long grass, on the path in between, and thaw that happened in the squares first and later on the path,…probably because the long grass was slightly fermenting and creating heat….etc etc. The constantly changing man-made landscape was fascinating to follow. My Bleach Fields evolved for almost a year and ended with the first color….Dandelions!

The photographs chronicle the year, taken with an I-phone10.