Bleeding Heart Flower Fairy

When we first moved to our house, over two decades ago, I immediately started planting a side garden, even though it was the end of summer. I stuck foot-long cuttings of forsythia along the boundary line and buried the roots of a Japonica bush that I’d dug out from a neighbor’s garden under cover of night before we locked our apartment doors for the last time.  The last thing I planted that September was a clump of dirt with yellow stalks and crumpled leaves, the roots of a pink bleeding heart plant (I didn’t realize it at the time, but all three plants were originally native to Japan). I didn’t expect the bleeding heart to take root, but it did.

I based my bleeding heart fairy on a reference photo of a teenager climbing a tree. I fashioned the sides of her gown’s peplum to resemble the shape of the blossoms.