Cotinus

My first encounter with the lovely Cotinus was in 2023 with my friend Annie in Brittany. It was love at first sight. I like the colors of its foliage, its cluster of flowers which give it a vaporous appearance and its funny names like smoketree, arbre à perruques, although its ancient names rhus cotinus points to the sumac family. No wonder it is so familiarly delicious, even if it is a distant cousin of poison ivy. I also like how the flowers draw lines whose finesse recalls an intaglio engraving or the cracks of a raku porcelain. While working on this book, I had in mind a delightful Japanese screen with six panels of silk painting. I used kakishibu as one of the dyes to achieve the red color I wanted to contrast with the deep purple colors that are sometimes the signature of cotinus. The accordion star structure invites the reader to enter the book and try to discern the plant’s mysteries, like the cat in the silk painting, intensely gazing at the foliage which does not reveal its treasures.