Esprit De La Foret (L’)

Histoires De Carres > Spring-Summer 2019

"My cocoon tightens, colors tease, / I'm feeling for the air; / A dim capacity for wings / Degrades the dress I wear," wrote Emily Dickinson. For Alice Shirley, a naturalist history enthusiast, these words by the great 19th-century American poet breathed life into these "easy sweeps of sky". A butterfly and a bird are expressed only by multicoloured motifs, feathers and quills, gliding above a dense, deep forest. Both share the privilege of escaping gravity and displaying the most beautiful natural ornamentation. Who has not, at least for a night, felt what it is like to fly over the treetops and to look down on the earth from the sky? An uplifting dream.