As Brece Honeycutt read about Dickinson’s life and poems, her interest focused on the poet at work in the garden. She trolled through the poems to find ones that related specifically to plants and insects that are found at Wave Hill from March through May, as well as poems that anticipate the oncoming spring, a season of rapid transition. Treading lightly, she developed a system to place the poems in the garden by creating copper labels shaped like envelopes, referencing the scraps of paper that Dickinson wrote on. The poems are etched on the labels and placed in proximity to plants growing in the gardens. The project was developed in close collaboration with Wave Hill’s gardeners, in particular with Charles Day, the Ruth Rea Howell Horticultural Interpreter. Since he is responsible for Wave Hill’s plant identification, he will place the Dickinson labels in the Flower and Wild Gardens throughout the spring as the particular plants appear. When not on view in the gardens, the copper labels are displayed in Wave Hill House’s reception area. Honeycutt and Day will lead a tour of Emily Dickinson’s poems in the garden on April 21.

Extensive research is key to Brece Honeycutt’s projects that explore women’s contributions to public life. At the Clara Barton National Historic Site in Glen Echo, MD, she installed health & hearth, a temporary installation about Barton’s experiences as a nurse on Civil War battlefields. At the Arlington Art Center, Arlington, VA, she first exhibited at Table, a project that centered on Mary Randolph (1762-1828) who authored one of the first American cookbooks by recording recipes usually shared by word of mouth. In 2002, silence was commissioned for an exhibition at Evergreen House, the former home of the Garrett family, explores Mary Elizabeth Garrett's (1854-1915) under-recognized philanthropic efforts. It is now permanently sited on the grounds of Bryn Mawr School in Baltimore, MD. Honeycutt’s work has also been exhibited at Broadway Windows, New York, NY; Maryland Art Place, Baltimore, MD; and the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC. She received Artist Fellowship Grants from the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities, Washington DC. She earned her BA from Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY and her MFA from Columbia University, New York, NY. More information can be found at www.brecehoneycutt.com.