Flower Power: How One Rose Bush Changed My Life
The Phoenix Rose, Oil on Linen, 40 x 72 in | 102 x 183 cm
For many years, my paintings reflected the vibrant cosmopolitan life I led in San Francisco. I was known for a series of paintings called “Portraits in Absentia” in which I used my subject’s belongings to create their portraits. My paintings included golf balls, stilettos, lipsticks, books, opera scores, ballet pointe shoes and footballs. They were a kind of archeology in paint.
Then in 2018, my work – and my life – was transformed forever by a single rose bush. A collector invited me to create a work for his soon-to-be built vineyard home in Sonoma. The homeowner and his wife had lost their prior home in the terrible 2017 Wine Country Fires, barely escaping with their lives. Everything on the property was destroyed and the only things that survived were the vines and one rose bush. Even more tragedy followed when the wife died several months later. But then something miraculous happened. That single rose bush began to bloom gloriously. The homeowner decided to build a new house on the same site and asked me to create a 6-foot painting of that rose bush for the house. We titled the painting “The Phoenix Rose,” because it literally rose out of the ashes.
Although I had already been painting flowers for some time, The Phoenix Rose taught me that flowers can be powerful messengers. They lure us in with their beauty and then offer potent lessons of hope, renewal and presence. If we pause and admire a flower, we can awaken into “now-ness” – THIS flower, THIS sunset, THIS breath, THIS precious moment.
After painting The Phoenix Rose, my painting life was utterly transformed. I now devote my time and energy to painting larger-than-life hyper-realistic flowers and offering their messages to the world. The beauty of a flower is the lure, and it beckons us to an inner awakening. We can be awakened from our sleep of busy-ness into the miracle of the present moment, the only moment there really IS.
You can watch a video about The Making Of The Phoenix Rose here.
