My mom said to always have flowers around
July 2, 2025 - November 10, 2025
As stay-at-home orders took effect, Taylor Yocom received a simple yet meaningful text from her mother: "Pick up a bouquet - it's good to have flowers around." Inspired by this gesture, Yocom established a daily creative ritual in the spring of 2020, crafting diptych collages - one depicting flowers arranged in a vase, the other showcasing the remnants left behind from the cut-outs. Sourced from 1950's Better Homes and Gardens issues, these floral compositions and abstract shapes became a reflection of her need for routine, the solace of creativity, and the quiet joy that flowers bring.
Additionally, Yocom's short film These flowers were for you was awarded "Best Experimental Film" at the 2023 St. Louis Filmmakers Showcase. In this deeply personal narrative, Yocom documents her experience as a matched bone marrow donor, creating artwork for the recipient while grappling with the ethics and purpose of making work about a stranger. The film weaves together her mother's story of losing her own mother to leukemia at the University of Iowa Hospital in the 1980s and Yocom's own potential future of donating marrow at the same place, forming an intimate reflection on legacy, connection, and artistic intention.
Her artistic practice intertwines collage, film, weaving, and floral imagery, often evolving through layers of transformation and doubt. She captures her hands at work, integrating the footage into film. Collages become weavings, and floral patterns are reimagined as wallpaper for her moving images. Yocom's work frequently confronts the tension between simplicity and complexity, questioning when a piece is "enough" and when it must evolve into something greater. At the core of her process is a quiet internal struggle - the desire to refine, to expand, and to craft meaning. Yet, sometimes, she allows the flowers to speak for themselves.
Taylor Yocom (b. 1992, Des Moines) is an artist based in St. Louis, holding a BFA in Photography from the University of Iowa and an MFA in Visual Art from Washington University in St. Louis's Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts.
Her work has been exhibited and screened at venues across North America, including projects-plus gallery, Indie Memphis, FilmDiaryNYC, Comfort Station Logan Square, Granite City Art and Design District, The Times Club, and the Montreal Feminist Film Festival. Her artist books and zines are held in collections at institutions such as Rutgers University, Washington University in St. Louis, and the MoMA Library. Yocom has participated in residencies at Cite Internationale des Arts in Paris, Endless Editions' Copy Shop Residency, and ArtFarm Nebraska.
Taylor Yocom, Thursday, 05.14.20 (scraps), 2020, Mixed Media, 5" x 7"
