Field Guide of the Plants of Lake George, NY
Goldey Projects is thrilled to publish the zine Field Guide of the Plants of Lake George, NY.
This zine features a collaborative project with Yan Cynthia Chen, Lauren Comito, Jenn Dierdorf, and Anne Schaefer.
Eugene Cecil Ogden published the original guide, "Field Guide to Aquatic Plants of Lake George, New York," in 1976 with the New York State Museum. In June 2026, Goldey Projects organized a group of artists to create a collaborative artist book inspired by this original guide made fifty years ago.
The primary location was Huletts Landing, NY, a small hamlet on the east side of Lake George, situated north of Black Mountain. This guide reveals a small selection of the plants studied and the prints made.
The goal was to create a version of this guide that functioned as a collaboration between the nature encountered and the artists who acted as its stewards. To produce the images, the group used lumen prints—an alternative process that utilizes sunlight to develop the image.
Lumen prints are cameraless contact prints made by placing slightly dampened plants onto the surface of photographic paper. The chemical reaction between the silver salts and plant chemistry—specifically phenolic compounds—creates the coloration. Phenolic compounds are electron-rich and are part of a plant's defense mechanisms. Examples commonly found in plants include phenolic acids, flavonoids, stilbenes, and tannins.
These compounds provide defense against insects, protection from the sun's UV radiation, support for cell wall structures, and signals to attract pollinators. Beyond the available sunlight, the quality of which changes drastically throughout the year, temperature and humidity levels are also factors in the resulting images. As viewers are about to see, these images are otherworldly and not at all what one would expect.
This book functions like a scavenger hunt. The orientation of the pages may rotate depending on the section, and there is purposeful repetition within the pages to help strengthen neural connections.
When viewing the work, readers should keep in mind that these are indexical images produced by the physical structure and chemical compounds of the plants themselves. Common and Latin names are included for all identified plants, and some entries feature descriptive text highlighting specific features from the guide.
