Drawing : In Praise of the Dandelion

Early illustration of a dandelion

The other day I was trying to get everyone excited about the various ways that research could help deepen an understanding of both the world and possible connections we could make between it and the artworks we make. Because one student's site chosen for developing ideas for artwork, was a small patch of waste ground, I have decided to put together some secondary research relating to that ubiquitous wasteland plant, the common dandelion, a plant that is sometimes regarded as a weed, but which historically has often been a vital source of both food and medicine. However research alone can make for a somewhat sterile approach to the subject and we are of course those muzzy headed things called artists, so I have blended into the secondary (book and Internet) research, the things that are personal to myself; my individual idiosyncratic bits of connection with the world that make my life interesting. In order to create unexpected images we often need a hard to grasp something, that grit in the oyster that triggers the growth of a pearl or hopefully in this case causes a poetic image to come into being.

Dandelions have historically often been used to represent celestial bodies, each one coming into prominence during the 3 different phases of the dandelion's life. The plant’s yellow flower representing the sun; the dispersed floating seeds the stars and the puffed out fluffy dandelion ball the moon. We have records of dandelion use going back over 4,000 years and fossil evidence of them from 50 million years ago. They are therefore much older as a species than humans and have had much more time to adapt to various environmental conditions. However like humans they are generalists and as such have been able to survive over a wide range of environments. The early 17th century herbalist, Nicholas Culpeper, found it to be a ‘virtuous herb’, and when consumed in the spring he states, "you may look a farther, you may see plainly without a pair of spectacles”. Its supposed ability to sharpen our eyes could be a clear metaphor and alongside its cleansing quality in the treatment of obstructions of the liver, gall bladder and spleen, you have a restorative concept that could also lead to images of healing.

In folklore the dandelion got its nickname, the ‘shepherd’s clock’, because the flower opens after sunrise and closes at dusk. They are of course very easy to grow, Dandelion seeds germinate quickly, generally taking from three to six weeks to sprout, and are able to survive a light frost. It is an aid in activating compost as well, making Dandelions useful agents for getting a wasteland's transformative energies moving quickly and keeping those energies moving. It is an essential component in a natural healing process, whereby if we leave a plot of wasteland long enough it will become a vital, thriving community of interrelated species. Therefore dandelions are an aid to their surrounding environmental community, helping to transform environments so that more delicate plants can grow; also providing a wealth of nutrients to a wide range of animal herbivores and omnivores and providing bees and other insects with nectar during times when other plants are not in flower. You could think of the dandelion as a catalyst for other garden reactions, its presence signalling that a healthy plant community was being built.

The dandelion 'sun' flowerhead

The dandelion’s bright yellow flowers open when touched with the sun’s first light and close again in the evening as the sun dips over the horizon. Because of this mimicry of the sun's actions and its appearance as a radiating yellow disk, it has long had strong associations in people's minds with the sun. This has led to certain folkloric metaphors, such as the dandelion’s yellow flower being able to shed light upon that which would otherwise be hidden. In herbal remedies, it can, because of this association with the life giving energies of the sun and therefore light, be used to help give the confused clarity and to rejuvenate the tired and enervate us after illness. It does indeed help clear the blood and has been used as a medicine for thousands of years. The dandelion is classified as a herb, and was used by Native Americans for eradicating kidney disease, reducing swelling, alleviating skin problems, stopping heartburn and curing upset stomachs. The Chinese used it for curing stomach problems, appendicitis, breast inflammations and lack of milk flow. In Europe, it has been used to relieve fever, boils, eye problems, diabetes and diarrhoea. As a child when you blew its seeds out into the air, you often made a wish or sought to foretell the future, but little did we think at the time, that our childish ‘seed-thoughts’ were helping the dandelion to plant its own seeds in far away places.

The distinction between weeds and non-weeds is a fascinating issue to examine. The definition of the dandelion as a weed shines a light on how human concerns shape the way we think about non-human things as well as how they fashion the types of spaces we develop. For instance, there is an old hierarchical organisation of inorganic and organic matter, that is measured against the position of human beings within the cosmic order of things. It is interesting to look at that and compare it to more recent ways of exploring relationships within current socio-economic practices, especially ones that define what plants are allowed to exist and where.

Raymond Lull and his staircase of hierarchies

In Raymond Lull's diagrams of hierarchies, notice how each element sits one above the other in importance, people are above animals, that are above plants, that are above moving forces such as fire and water and which are above inert things such as rocks. People are though below more spiritual beings such as angels, God of course occupying the top step.

From 'Book the ascent and decent of the intellect' 1305

Back in the 13th and 14th century Raymond Lull developed a way of categorising the hierarchy of relationships that existed between God and all of his creation. Lull used the metaphor of a ladder or stairway to do this. The mind 'ascends the analogy of being' and as it does so it contemplates the relationships that God has set up between himself and all of his creations. This contemplation would have been centred on passages from the Bible, such as this from Genesis: 1:26–28.

'God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth'

In this passage from Genesis, God is giving human beings the authority to have dominion over every other living thing and that means that Jews and Christians have for over 2,000 years been taught that plants like the dandelion are a step or two below ourselves on the ladder of being.

The fact that certain plants have been historically understood as food, textile material, money, religious objects, ornaments or weeds speaks to the many socio-economic variables at play in their categorisation; their names sometimes preserving traces of their various social lives. With this in mind, along with a very particular personal reason, the story of dandelions, and their ambiguous existence on the border between weeds and food, becomes something that begins to open out for myself several avenues within which to develop visual inventions.

Perhaps I ought to explain my personal association with dandelions. It is twofold and complex but all the more rich therefore in its potential. My father was an obsessive lawn maintainer. He was one of those people that liked to see an immaculate lawn in front of the house, as if it was a sign of the ordered house behind it. I was taught to mow the lawn in straight lines, so that the grass was at exactly the right length and bent over at a particular angle so that the lawn's stripes, lined up with the house's axis.

It was a time when boys up until the age of 12 still had to wear short trousers

A nice striped lawn

As well as to mow the lawn, my job was to weed it. Dandelions were for my father a particular threat and they were easy to spot, a tiny spot of yellow was for my father an eyesore and to keep him happy, I learnt to keep an eye out for them. I was taught to use Weedol and would pour it onto any foreign plant that threatened to disturb the lawn's homogeneity and as these were two of the most resented tasks my father forced on me, both mowing and weeding became inextricable from my idea of what he represented. (Yes I am aware of Freud's Oedipus complex) Many years later I was to get a phone call to tell me he had died, he had had a heart attack when mowing the lawn. My mother's mother, my grandmother, lived in a village and was deeply attuned to the natural world and every year we would go walking in the local fields and would pick dandelion heads, so that she could make dandelion wine. This was a joyous experience, instead of a chore it was lots of fun and was a time of immersing myself in the world of tall grasses that ticked your legs and felt warm as you rolled down banks covered in what my dad would have thought of as weeds, but which my gran knew as plants with stories. These two alternate visions have stayed with me throughout my life and still influence my view of the world and our relationship with it. The dandelion for myself, representing a focus around which these two opposing realities moved. What I'm suggesting here is that when looking to develop work around something, it is often useful to find a personal relationship to the subject. This may of course allow others to accuse you of making your approach too subjective, but for myself, it has always been an essential aspect of why I'm bothered to make work about the things I do.

In my father's mind the human / plant relationship was one of signals about property and ownership. He did not want any 'weeds' to dilute his signs to neighbours that he was in total control of his domestic life. He owned the house and controlled what was allowed within its boundaries. But my father was not alone in his thinking. A quick search of the Internet will reveal a host of ways to eradicate weeds from lawns, millions of home owners still wanting to ensure their immaculately kept lawns are free from foreign invaders. There is a very good article on lawns by Krystal D'Costa that was published in Scientific American, 'The American Obsession with Lawns', in it she states;

"Lawns are viewed as an indicator of socio-economic character, which translates into property- and resale values. Lawns are indicative of success; they are a physical manifestation of the American Dream of home ownership. To have a well maintained lawn is a sign to others that you have the time and/or the money to support this attraction. It signifies that you care about belonging and want others to see that you are like them." (D'Costa, 2017)

The dandelion becomes, not just a couple of steps down the ladder of being, as in Lull's medieval hierarchy of relationships, but an economic threat to property and resale value. A reflection of the gradual erosion of the Christian religion and its value systems and replacement by capitalism and its value systems.

There are dandelion stories that have been told over and over again and in many different languages, common tales that belong to everyone and these stories contain within them other sets of values, in the case of the following story a more communal idea is fostered, could it perhaps suggest that the dandelion be celebrated for its socialist ideals?

This story has been told many times, sometimes it is an angel that does the judging and at other times fairies, but whichever version of the story you will hear, it is always one that celebrates the virtues of a flower that seems to be able to grow almost anywhere and that has edible, roots, leaves and a flower that makes for tasty wine.

Long, long ago, the flowers and their fairies had been having long ongoing talks and discussions as to which was the most beautiful, the most special and therefore the most loved flower. The talks went on for many weeks and eventually an argument started; each and every flower at some point claiming to be the most beautiful and the most special. Finally, after much distress and shedding of petals all of the flowers agreed to let the Flower Fairies decide. The Queen of the Flower Fairies was a fair, gentle and kind spirit and so the fairies turned to her and asked her to settle the issue and to give one plant her blessing and the title of the "most perfect" flower. At first she refused the task, she told the flowers that they were all wonderful and said to the other fairies, "They are all beautiful in their own way." But the bickering began again and she could see that there was not going to be a solution until they all had an answer.

The Fairy Queen had ideas of her own about beauty and what was special and she therefore decided to test each flower by asking them one question. She had always understood that it was only by considering the needs of others and the relationships between everything that we could become aware of how delicate and wonderful the fragile nature of existence was and her question was designed to find out if the flowers had ever themselves thought about these things. Although she loved them dearly, she had always had a suspicion that they loved themselves a little too much and that they rarely thought about how much their beauty relied on the efforts of others.

The first flower the Fairy talked to was the rose. "What is your ambition?" she asked. "I would like to climb the castle wall." said the rose. "And then kings and queens and nobles would pass by everyday and exclaim over my beauty, my scent and my delicate nature." The Flower Fairy Queen nodded her head and thanked the rose, and then moved on.

Next she came to a tulip, standing tall and proud. "What is your ambition?" she asked the tulip. "I want to live in a public garden" said the tulip. "Where everyday people would come and admire my wonderful colours and see how straight and tall I stand." Once again, the Flower Fairy Queen nodded her head and after thanking the tulip, she moved on.

She walked until she came to a forest. There she found some violets. She asked them "What is your ambition little violets?" "Oh" said the violets quietly "We like it here hidden in the woods where no one can see us and where the trees keep the sun from dulling our beautiful colour." Once again, the Flower Fairy Queen nodded her head and after thanking the violets, she moved on. She then talked to the tiger lily who told her how wild and fierce it was, of how it wanted to be the strongest and bravest of all the flowers. She talked to the sunflower who barely answered her because all she wanted to do was be warmed by the sun. The Queen talked to the orchids who only wanted to dance and she tried to talk to the narcissus but it was too busy looking at it's reflection in the water to speak to her.

The queen walked on speaking to flower after flower, each one full of self regard but of little awareness of the needs of others or of how and why they had themselves become such beautiful things.

After many months of wondering the Earth she was becoming worried, was there no flower that understood the world in a similar way to herself? She was ready to give up and go home when she came to a field with bright fluffy yellow flowers on long thin stalks. The leaves were long and jagged and very close to the ground and the flowers looked happy and cheerful. "What are you called?" she asked? "I am a dandelion" said the little flower. "What is your ambition little dandelion?", she asked, just as she had all the other flowers that she had come across. "I'd like to live wherever there are others. I want to live beside the road, and in the meadows, and push up between the sidewalks in the cities, and make friends with snails and flies and beetles and worms and other plants and mushrooms and algae and birds. I want all things to feel happier when they see my bright colours, when they feel the thin fingers of my roots tickle them, when they see my juicy leaves and taste how delicious I am." The dandelion chattered on happily saying, "I want to be the first flower that children pick in the spring and take to their mothers. I want to carry wishes on the wind and become part of everyone's life."

At last the Flower Fairy Queen began to smile again, she nodded her head and said "Little dandelion, you are the most perfect and special flower of all and you shall have your wish! You will blossom everywhere from spring until autumn and be known as everyone's flower." This is why the dandelion comes so early and pushes its head up everywhere with such strength and determination; and why it is so loved by other plants and soils, who offer it hospitality throughout the year.

So when you see a dandelion peeping out between the cracks in paving stones, sitting in alongside the too neat grasses of a manicured lawn, or simply holding on to what would be a bare patch of waste ground if it wasn't around, remember that it is the most special of flowers and blessed by the Flower Fairy Queen and if you don't treat it with the utmost respect she will know this and will remember you and that is something you really don't want to happen.

Dandelion stars

Seed head structure

The dandelion stars are of course its method of seed distribution. In the mass of seeds known as a dandelion clock, each seed is suspended from a parachute-like stalk. We have all as children released these seeds with a puff of our breath, but as we did so we were never really aware of the complex science that lay beneath this seductive process. The dandelion's seed parachute is a bunch of bristles called a pappus. Each pappus carries around 100 filaments, each attached to a central point, rather like the head of a chimney sweep’s brush. Just like a parachute, it increases aerodynamic drag, slowing the descent of each seed and allowing it, once aloft, to stay in the air for much longer.

Images of the low pressure vortex created as a dandelion seed-head floats downward

The dandelion's parachute of bristles is arranged so that when the pappus falls, air flows between the bristles and creates a low-pressure vortex. When captured using special imaging technology, this vortex is rather like a tiny ghost that travels above the pappus and yet is not attached to it, an invisible familiar that generates lift and prolongs the seed’s time in the air. An article in 'Nature' by Cummins, et al. (2018) explains that the key to this lies not in the bristles of the pappus, but in the spaces between them.

'If projected on to a disc, the bristles together occupy just under 10% of the pappus’s area, and yet create four times the drag that would be generated by a solid disc of the same radius. The study shows that air currents entrained by each bristle interact with pockets of air held by its neighbours, creating maximum drag for minimum expenditure of mass. The pappus’s porosity — a measure of the proportion of air that it lets pass — determines the shape and nature of the low-pressure vortex'. (Cummins, et al. 2018 p. 417)

What interested me most about this however was the fact that the dandelion had evolved to respond to the thickness of the air, something that I had only thought animals could do. Like the dandelion's parachutes, tiny insects, such as the featherwing beetle have evolved to swim through thick air. Featherwing beetles do not fly using traditional wing shapes, they swim through the what is to them, thick viscous air, using ‘paddles’ made of bristles. The difference between plants and animals is perhaps less than we would like to think. If we think of a dandelion more as a series of interacting processes, then its seeds floating away are just one of several aspects, all of which are equally important to its life cycle, and one aspect of this life cycle is that its seeds need to fly.

The featherwing beetle

The dandelion's 'stars' are not just mythically attuned, they are reminders of how narrow our particular frame of reference can be. The very air that we breathe is of course a fluid substance and one that for some creatures is like a sea within which they swim. The dandelion being one of those living things that is uniquely poised between earth and air.

When botanical illustrators are asked to show the dandelion, they often concentrate on its above ground features, but sometimes an illustrator will acknowledge that there is as much going on under the ground as above it. Durer gives us the underlying sod of earth that he cut out of the ground with his plants, as an integral part of his subject and in doing so he also gives us a glimpse of the complex interrelated life of these plants, rather than dissecting them, atomising them and cutting them up as if they were 'dead' things.

Durer

Various artists' approaches to illustrating dandelions

The Japanese approach to dandelion illustration is less 'scientific' but more poetic. The interrelationship between things is more important than the dissection of its parts.

Hare and Dandelion: Kubo Shunman: 1820

Dandelions are deeply respected within Japanese culture, but perhaps a poem serves us better than prose.

Stars and Dandelions by Kaneko Misuzu

Deep in the blue sky,
like pebbles at the bottom of the sea,
lie the stars unseen in daylight  until night comes.
You can’t see them, but they are there.
Unseen things are still there.

The withered, seedless dandelions
hidden in the cracks of the roof tile
wait silently for spring,  their strong roots unseen.
You can’t see them, but they are there.
Unseen things are still there.

The Little Weed puppet between Bill and Ben the Flowerpot Men

In the 1950s the BBC used to have a series of children's programs most of them involving string puppets. The Flower Pot Men was the story of Bill and Ben, two little men made of flower pots who lived at the bottom of an English suburban garden. Julia Williams was the voice of Little Weed, a dandelion with a smiling face, who was always shown growing between the two large flowerpots that were the homes for Bill and Ben. The program was for myself as a child a powerful visual influence and as I got older became one of those personal image banks on which I could draw upon, the further back in my personal timeline they emerge from, the stranger they seem but somehow also more comforting. The talking weed in particular would sometimes come to inhabit my dreams, eventually of course I would need to draw it, a process that at times can be vital to the construction of what I see as an externalised mind. I'm afraid this is another very personal account, but by thinking of artworks as externalised minds, I am able to think about how they work for myself and why I need them.

Various drawn manifestations of the dandelion/Little Weed in my own work

Other artists have found their own ways to use the dandelion within their art. The American art collective 'the art department', gathered bags of dandelion seed heads in order to construct their 'wish processing centre'.

The art department: wish-processing centre

A participant makes a wish

In a working industrial site southeast of downtown Los Angeles, the LA-based group 'The art department' created a wish-processing centre. This ephemeral installation, lasted for just one weekend. It incorporated large piles of dandelion seed heads, which have long been associated with the granting of wishes when their seeds are blown off into the air. People were expected to gather seed heads and make their way to the wishing stations and make wishes.

I have only touched upon the many and diverse stories associated with dandelions, from their current use as a substitute latex in the manufacture of rubber, to particular recipes for salads and the myths associated with bed wetting; as soon as you begin researching, more and more avenues to follow will open out.

Dandelions remind us of our childhood and those times when we really believed in make-believe and that wishes could come true and as such as far as I am concerned, they ought to be celebrated as wonderful things and never, ever regarded as weeds.

I'll leave you with the work of the Japanese artist Yusuke Aonuma, dandelion seeds form the building blocks of very carefully arranged architectural artworks preserved on rafts of perspex.