Post and artwork by our blog team‘s very own Han Worsley.
My love affair with plants has been the source of much amusement among my friends and family. I am the crazy plant lady, my house overflowing with a selection of succulents, cacti, and lush rainforest plants (a massive challenge to keep alive in the freezing Canberra climate). This love has always included flowers, and after finishing a floristry diploma, I wanted to work on something else creative and fun.
Native flowers always remind me of my rural home. My study procrastination through the HSC was going on long walks picking wildflowers on the family farm. A lot of people claim that Australian natives are spiky and ugly, but I think there is so much beauty in something as delicate as a flower being able to survive the insane elements in Australia. Drawing a different native species for each colour of the pride flag helps me to connect my queer identity to my upbringing and my home, which I’ve found a really difficult thing to do.
The idea for the series, called “Aussies for Equality”, came about during the same-sex postal plebiscite. At our core, Australians are honest, strong, and fair people, and the queer community and its allies showed this with tremendous force through those unnecessarily devastating few months.
Some of the flowers have amazing meaning behind them. The waratah, Telopea Speciosissima, means to be the most beautiful, and to stand out from afar, much like the queer community. The Cootamundra wattle is known in my family as “Granny’s Wattle”, in a nod to my amazing late grandmother. The Canberra bluebell is a little slice of my new home, far away from my (much warmer) home in northern NSW. There are so many things that make up my identity. I love that I can convey just about all of it through my crazy plant lady tendencies.
See the entirety of the “Aussies for Equality” series here.
Sisterhood of Soul began as a podcast, and now includes one of the most aesthetically pleasing websites you could ever lay eyes on. It publishes work by young wom*n, and is the brain child of superstar student Abby Butler. To see more amazing work by female-identifying people, and to contribute to the Sisterhood by submitting your own work, visit the website here.
To learn more about the queer community, or to access support, visit this website.