After giving birth to my third baby, I had a dream about marigolds being used to make gasoline at a facility in Kentucky. It was a glimpse into a post-fossil fuel economy, a fuel from the future.

Marigolds are a flower for the people. There are approximately 55,000 species of marigolds that have been traded worldwide. Used for ceremonial purposes in many cultures, from celebrations of joy to grief and remembrance, marigolds make a sunshine paint when processed into pigment. Yellow is a common colour among botanical pigments, the easiest to find and make out of all of the rainbow.

I have been working with marigolds for several years, trading seeds with people from all over the continent, and receiving marigolds from many gardeners in my community. This yellow is brought together by many, representing collective care and the lineage of a plant that evokes past and present ritual.

Marigolds are a mighty flower, capable of withstanding high heat both in the garden and the dye pot. They create a range of yellows and pair well with rust to create an olive green. Marigold pigment plays well with others in this painting’s palette, made entirely from the qathet region of British Columbia, the territory of the Tla’amin People. Yellow is an intermediary between botanicals, invasives and native plants, metals, and earth pigments.

Marigold Gasoline is in a family of work titled botanical robots. These creatures are an amalgamation of the more-than-human world and today’s technologies from which I cannot escape; they’re a growing family of creature visitors that emerge while drawing with two hands out on the land, sharing wisdom from past elders and insight from future ancestors. These creatures have a natural origin. They have a future of growth and decay. They are illuminating a path forward for today.

Marigold Gasoline:

I dreamt marigolds can make gasoline

And somewhere in Polk County

A museum holds the history of marigold’s many uses for a collaborative community-

Big drums of golden petals drip to create fuel for a trade economy.

Somehow it’s true.

In the long ago, and a future we beckon near.

Somewhere this is possible -

When we’ve forgotten our drives to be extraordinary or on top.

When we’ve released the fear of not enough.

I told you about it, the dream.

And we laughed because so many people remember you as Marigold instead of my spicy flower, Magnolia.

We lay out naked in the seldom winter sunlight

Charge our batteries,

Slow down our rhythms,

After a dip in frigid water.

Let’s make a fire together.

Let’s embrace winter and the quiet.

Let’s gather with no expectations,

And remember other ways of moving through the world.

- for my daughter Magnolia, and the future way of the world