Description
Here I have depicted botanist Carl Linnaeus as a parrot surrounded by roots, vegetables and flowers with a bird nest. He is my hero and helped instill a life long love of growing plants both to eat and enjoy for the blooms. As a Swedish-American, I am also very proud that this world-famous botanist was Swedish and has inspired generations of people to appreciate the plants we share the planet with and that give us oxygen. I also admire his scientific exploration of Swedish Lapland in 1732. He investigated the customs and lifestyle of the native reindeer-herding Sami people and spent five months studying the “Three Kingdoms of Nature” there that included plants, animals and minerals. He also took to wearing traditional Sami garb including a loose-fitting belted tunic known as a gakti made from reindeer hide and a “four winds” pointed square hat. He completed the look with curling-toed lapikas (shoes) designed to easily secure to skis and a poncho-like cape. In this collage Linnaeus is wearing the Lapland costume and is a green parrot as the bird is highly revered as a messenger due to its unique ability to mimic human language and is a representation of devotion–in this case, a scientist devoted to classifying plants.
