Synkroniciti is thrilled to welcome back visual artist Jamie Frontiera of Houston, Texas, who won our “Dreams” cover contest last year with The Koi Fish Pond. She returns with two stunning artworks in wood revealing powerful truths about autonomy and interconnectedness.
Dandelion Expansion illustrates a haiku written by her mother, writer and poet Deborah K. Frontiera. Together they affirm an audacious truth: the smallest seed contains a universe of possibility. Jamie draws on the tradition of botanical illustration, an art form shaped by women such as Elizabeth Blackwell, Maria Sibylla Merian, and Mary Agnes Chase, and pushes it beyond documentation into mythic territory.
Two adjoining horizontal basswood panels featuring dandelions, chip carved and painted with watercolor, form a window. On the left the dandelions are rendered realistically, on the right Jamie abstracts them into rings of fractals surrounding a flying seed. The shift from realism to abstraction creates a sense of lift, an expansion both literal and symbolic.
“Every seed is a smaller form of the dandelion it will become as witnessed by its fractal geometry.”
Courage to Stand is an ingenious multi‑panel sculpture honoring the ongoing fight for women’s rights. Five scenes slot into a base, creating a narrative that moves from individual defiance to collective uprising. The first four scenes are carved and three dimensional. The fifth, at the back, is a two-dimensional protest scene, rendered through the use of pyrography, which uses fire to burn an image. The viewer looks through all five scenes at once, witnessing an unmistakable call to action.
“How monumental it is for that first person to stand up for what they believe! The courage to not sit idly by, to not be invisible but take up as much room as you can. I wanted to express turning anger over rights being taken away into a positive—that we won’t go back.”
Both pieces echo the Jungian idea that the individual who dares to realize themself becomes a force for growth, renewal, and collective survival. Jamie’s work combines an inventive imagination with knowledge of art and history to celebrate freedom and the transformative fire of women who refuse to shrink.
View Dandelion Expansion and Courage to Stand in Synkroniciti’s Audacity issue, Vol. 8, No. 1, available here: https://synkroniciti.com/the-magazine/purchase-individual-issues/.
“I am a wood carver and photographer, and began woodcarving in 2017 after seeing the artistry brought out in the wood in Venice’s Scuola De San Rocco. I started exploring all aspects, from chip carving, to relief, pyrography, and carving in the round. With each piece I try to challenge my own abilities. I am drawn to movement, nature and the geometries found there. My hope is to express playfulness or draw you into the dramatic intricacies.
I was raised in Texas, and I have a bachelor’s degree from Pratt Institute. My work can be found on my website and Instagram @jmfcarvings.”