Dickinson’s Herbarium Reimagined

Between the Dashes #1 – An Emily Dickinson Museum Blog  • June 3, 2026 

On Friday, May 29, the Emily Dickinson Museum hosted a special Amherst College Reunion program, “This Earthen Door: An Anthotype Homage to Emily Dickinson.” The one-hour illustrated lecture featured contemporary artists Amanda Marchand and Leah Sobsey presenting their collaborative project and book, which blends historical archives, plant-based photography, and ecological activism.

Introduced by Jane Wald, the Museum’s Jane and Robert Keiter Family Executive Director, and Museum Trustee Christopher Bogan (’76), the event highlighted how historical archives can serve as living resources to navigate modern environmental challenges.

“For much of my 24 years with the Museum, my work has been centered on the physical and cultural contexts of Emily Dickinson’s life—what we call her ‘material world,'” said Wald during her opening remarks. “We spend our days preserving the architecture of her home and the soil of her gardens, but our ultimate goal is to see that history spark new imagination.”

Reanimating History Through Anthotypes

Amanda Marchand and Leah Sobsey
Red Daylily, Emily at 14 – negative
(from silhouette of Dickinson cut by Charles Temple 1845)

This Earthen Door  is an eco-feminist collaboration that reanimates Emily Dickinson’s herbarium for the 21st century. Marchand and Sobsey remade Dickinson’s original herbarium pages using anthotypes, a plant-based photographic process developed during the poet’s era.

The artists extracted pigments from plants they grew and harvested by hand—the exact species that Dickinson herself cultivated or collected in the nearby woods and meadows of Amherst, Massachusetts. The project involved intensive studio practice and collaborative research with botanists.

By focusing on this intersection of art and science, This Earthen Door underscores the enduring relevance of archives while shedding light on the historically overlooked scientific and artistic contributions of women. The artists remind us that historical archives are not static. Instead, they are living resources that can help us navigate our shared ecological future.

Reflecting on Dickinson’s poem, “New feet within my garden go — / New fingers stir the sod —” (FR 79), Wald noted that Marchand and Sobsey’s work represents a perfect modern realization of those “new fingers” interacting with Dickinson’s legacy.

In a time marked by widespread climate anxiety and ecological instability, the artists’ work asks a vital question: How can a renewed, tactile attention to plants reshape our understanding of the present moment—and our shared futures?