Flowers are following me around this summer.
Flowers are following me around this summer.
New 'Flower Party' paintings, works in progress, and necessary experimenting.
NEW: ‘Into the Forest of Flowers’
The newest painting in the Flower Party Series is the beautiful earthy ‘Into the Forest of Flowers’, pictured above. Here’s the story for this painting:
Here we are, at the entrance to the Flower Forest. Step this way please, the flowers are present, and ready to greet you. You may want to bring something along to give back to the flowers here today - a smile, acknowledgment, or compliment will do nicely.
The flowers in this forest are earthy, and the whole place smells of nature, earth, and natural flower scents. Each beautiful bloom you pass is unique. Simply being present in this space is healing.
‘Into the Forest of Flowers’ is 9” x 12”, acrylic on paper, unframed.
$175.00 for this original painting, shipping to US locations included.
Purchase this painting at my online shop.
NEW: ’Diva’
The Diva graces us all with her presence, here in the middle of a gathering of notable flowers. She stands out, and glows in a light that seems to come from within herself. It is worth noting that she doesn’t need to steal the light from any of the other beautiful flowers around her. There’s no need for competition, for every one of them have a place to grow and be.
This painting is from the ‘Flower Party’ series. It’s summertime, and the flowers are throwing party after party, for as long as they can. You can’t keep those flowers down - they welcome rain and wind and storms, as well as the hot sunny days. The flowers know that all of the elements around them help create the world in which the flowers live.
‘Diva’ is 9.5” x 13”, acrylic on paper, unframed.
$175.00 for this original painting, shipping to US locations included.
Purchase this painting at my online shop.
Works in progress and more experimentation
All of these pieces are up on my work table right now. None of them have yet been released into the world, because they need… more.
I made a short video this week showing and talking about what’s on my worktable, and you can see it at my YouTube channel right here.
Yes, I’ve got flowers on the brain right now.
It’s summer and they’re growing everywhere, which all on its own is a miraculous gift from the earth. But also, I’m seeing this whole series of flower pieces as a statement, in a way, on having permission to show up as oneself. To glow and shine as colorfully and brightly as we choose.
Which is kind of the point, in my view. Who else are you going to be or show up being, if not you? But so often, on the way to becoming, and allowing ourselves to be however and whomever we want, we run into judgments, resistance, and the fear of others. We might not feel safe enough to be seen, and so we blend in, we hide.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve done this a few times in my life.
If someone is upset by you or me expressing ourselves in a certain way, one we choose, that is their problem, not ours. However, if we are sensitive or vulnerable to the criticism, and particularly if one is being bullied as a young or marginalized person, it can be painful or invalidating to stand out and be seen as the flower we choose to be.
So I’m making a series of paintings about how flowers don’t need to compete with each other to be seen. Each one is beautiful, has a reason for existing, and is exactly as it needs to be.
This is also true for each of us, even when we forget we can have this too.
More inspiration this week
I have no idea where I was when Yonderboi showed up on the scene, way back in 2000, with this gem of a record.
I love ‘discovering’ new to me music that everyone else probably heard way back when, but this album is really speaking to me now.