Amelia Louise Daws is a Senior Graphic Design and Interdisciplinary Studies Major at Georgia College & State University. She is also earning a Minor in Museum Studies. Raised in Cumming, Georgia, Amelia’s work focuses on relationships expressed through the Language of Flowers. After graduation, she hopes to pursue a career in Graphic Design– concentrating on publication– or in Museum Exhibition design.
Project Statement
A Bouquet For is a book that shows the progression of a sour partnership– romantic or platonic. I aim to work in publication or museums one day so this project combines handling consistent themes and concepts, allowing me to develop stylistic diversity. Each of the four chapters are based in the Victorian language of flowers and center around a bouquet meant for a certain occasion: “For Partnership” (marriage), “For Warnings”, “For Bitter Ends”, and finally “For New Beginnings”. The bouquets are placed in a series from Partnership to New Beginnings, surrounded by the content and spreads from the book. The book was made in Adobe InDesign, Photoshop, and Fresco. I painted, crafted, photographed, and illustrated different textures, subjects, and words to be collaged throughout the book.
Artist Statement
I am first and foremost a crafter and gatherer at heart. I love to compile the ordinary moments and ephemera we look past– making it into something. My practice revolves heavily around finding these moments and using them for inspiration to make something from scratch or collage something together anew. I want my viewers to spend time examining the little things in my work, the consistent and inconsistent.
I am most comfortable sharing other people’s stories and passions. In A Bouquet For I had to push past my boundaries and reflect inward on my relationships to create a narrative. While searching my past notes for materials I found a poem 15 year old me wrote about flowers: “Flowers. Nature’s way of communicating beauty/ All of life, all of color/ Can be seen through flowers/ When I call you my flower, I am calling you my life, my love, my definition of the most beautiful woman.” My younger self knew more about how I felt towards the people in my life and expressed it more clearly than I could now. In the creation of this book I found my spontaneity in creating again, following my younger self’s earnestness in her want for connection and creation.