Soil chromatography is like taking a photo of the compounds and bacteria that make up a substance.

This listing is for a giclee print (aka a digitally printed copy) of a chromatogram I made for my body of work titled The Land Loves Us. You will receive a 17" x 22" unframed reproduction print. Note that while I have uploaded photos that match the prints' colors as closely as I can, colors may vary among different computer monitors. What appears on your monitor may not reflect the exact shades of color in the print.

The printers printed the back of this print upside down, so that the bottom of the text (back of the print) aligns with the top (front) of the print. While you can display your print any which way you like, I'm providing a $10 discount for this printing error. 

Dragonball composed of white tea from Jinggu stuffed into an orange from Xinhui

Some of my favorite tea includes dragonballs, which can refer to tea rolled into a ball or stuffed into an orange. Authentic dragonballs are made with unripened oranges from Xinhui, Guangdong, the same province (though not the town) my family is from. In Traditional Chinese Medicine, aged orange peels are an important medicine. Dragonballs made with orange peels are often used to soothe upset stomachs. 

The original chromatogram featured in my exhibition, Mari Miller: The Land Loves Us, at the Chinese American Museum of Chicago in early 2024. Learn more about the exhibition here. I made the chromatogram in the week leading up to the exhibition when I realized that all the prints I had made with dragonballs were made when I was first learning soil chromatography, before I had improved upon my technique. While hanging in the museum over the course of over a month, the original print developed as it was exposed to UV light. Flat grays gained red hues and the details that you see in this print emerged.