Winter Wetlands Ice Heart 
Cracked Yellow Shell Gulf of Mexico Heart 
Skunk Cabbage Heart 
My Heart is a Red Lipped Succulent 
Fat Raindrop Heart 
Bluestone Beach Heart 
Slick Red Rock Heart 
Cardinal Flower Heart of the Brook 
It’s Morning in Your Red Leaf Heart 
Desert Cactus Heart 
Blue Swamp Heart 
Charles River Heart
Seasonal Hearts
Artist Statement
By Kelly DuMar
“Live in each season as it passes,
breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit,
and resign yourself to the influence of the earth.”
~ Henry David Thoreau
“I collect Valentines when I walk. I find them in the wetlands and meadows and rivers and beaches and deserts, wherever I am, where I walk, daily. These organic images seem to me like metaphors for the different seasons of my own moody, mysterious heart:
- January: Winter Wetlands Ice Heart
- February: Cracked Yellow Shell Gulf of Mexico Heart
- March: Skunk Cabbage Heart
- April: My Heart is a Red Lipped Succulent
- May: Fat Raindrop Heart
- June: Bluestone Beach Heart
- July: Slick Red Rock Heart
- August: Cardinal Flower Heart of the Brook
- September: It’s Morning in Your Red Leaf Heart
- October: Desert Cactus Heart
- November Blue Swamp Heart
- December: Charles River Heart
A wonderful part of the experience of these photos for me is in the making: the sensory, bodily encounter I have with plants, the way the nature is imprinted on my knees as I bend down to get close to the earth from which these organic images have sprung. Each image is an emotional experience, and works similarly as a poem does. I take a picture because I am awakened by an unconscious call to notice something in my daily habitat and let it be expressed through me; I feel something in the here and now. My images want to communicate into the breath and throb of a moment of enlightenment: an integration from unconscious knowing.”
Kelly DuMar is a poet, playwright and workshop facilitator from Boston. She’s author of three poetry chapbooks, girl in tree bark (Nixes Mate, 2019), Tree of the Apple, (Two of Cups Press), and All These Cures, (Lit House Press). Her poems, prose and photos are published in many literary journals including Bellevue Literary Review, Tupelo Quarterly, Crab Fat, Storm Cellar, Corium & Tiferet, and frequently in Feral. Kelly serves on the Board of the International Women’s Writing Guild (IWWG), and produces the Bi-Monthly Open Mic Writer Series attended by women worldwide. She blogs her daily nature photos & creative writing at kellydumar.com/blog.