Papaya Leaves — Sarah Shotts

A hyper focus project

Sometimes I give the idea that I am “very organized” and have things “all planned out.”

Reader, I do not.

In fact, since becoming a parent I have very little structure and planning in my life at all. But what I do have is hyper focus. And I surf it like a wave whenever it comes for me.

Act 1

A neglected compost heap.

I had big plans for a garden this year. I made a calendar with what to plant each month.

There would be squash.

There would be pumpkins.

There was not squash or pumpkins.

We made it to radishes before my back pain flared up and the whole garden (including the compost heap) was ignored for roughly 8 months.

Act 2

Enter Papaya Stage Left.

September 27th

When I started paying attention again there was a giant papaya plant (tree… a baby tree y’all) and burgeoning cherry tomatoes taking over the compost heap.

I learned it was a papaya plant with this cool identify plant feature iPhones have now. I double checked on Google and surely enough it was a match. The leaves are massive, but if we lived in a tropical climate they would get even bigger.

I immediately fell in love and knew I had to make art with these.

I wanted to preserve as many as possible before the frost comes in and ruins all the lovely leaves.

(I live in Arkansas so it won’t survive winter, but I’m holding out the smallest hope it might regrow from the root next year.)

October 3rd

I tried to press leaves in the largest book I own, but the edges stuck and out and eventually crumpled up.

October 11th

I asked Nathan to cut some plywood to make a massive flower press.

October 12th

I layered cardboard and leaves between two plywood sheets and put two heavy boxes of tubs filled with notebooks (which we pulled out of the attic for another project.)

Hand for scale.

This is one of the biggest leaves so far.

Like I said, it’s trying to become a tree.

Act 3

Making it work.

I had 3 mediums in mind for the leaves:

Press the leaves to make imprinted pottery over winter.
Ink the leaves and make monoprints on paper.
Print the leaves onto clothing with fabric paint.

I may get to monoprints, but I started with clothing using a bottle of fabric paint I had on hand.

Results were varied, but I learned a lot about the materials.

I started on a pillowcase and then moved to printing olive green overalls.

This isn’t a DIY post, but I did learn that the best way to apply paint was a large flat brush and that you have to work quickly and thickly (but not too thick) so the paint doesn’t dry before the transfer. It’s also not the most washable technique. It will continue distressing with each wash so I will likely wash as needed using the gentle cycle.

October 16th

I printed two pairs of overalls and the back of an olive green chore jacket.

I’m wearing the overalls with my Gary Graham tee which feels full circle.

I bought this white fabric paint in 2021 after seeing Gary Graham paint a dress on Making the Cut.

I knew I wanted to paint a pair of olive green overalls, but didn’t know what I wanted to paint. Sometimes the seed of inspiration takes a while to sprout, but it’s always worth the wait. 🌱

After printing these they reminded me of the S. S. Daley collection Dan Levy wore last autumn. I fell in love with these looks on first sight so it was probably an unconscious influence.

I remember seeing the trench coat first and thinking “I want that, but with leaves.” Then I found the second.