In 2016, I moved with my husband from San Francisco to Carmel-by-the-Sea on California’s central coast. Suddenly, my world was suffused with trees, flowers, mists, and soft sea breezes. This verdant environment brought back memories of my childhood and led to a new trajectory in my work. I began a series called Flora Portraits, in which I depict flowers at many times their life size and set them in spare, monochromatic backgrounds. I work in oil on fine French linen in a slow process that requires many glazed layers to achieve the rich and luminous result I want. For each painting, I gather flowers, leaves, branches, and vines and bring them into my studio. There, I arrange them in dramatic lighting and photograph them. Over a period of many hours and even days I construct a composition that expresses the story I wish to convey.

I am primarily a still-life artist, but I think of these Flora paintings as portraits. They are portraits of individual flowers in their ephemeral place and time, and in their characteristic forms and colors. I am not seeking to create scientifically accurate depictions. Although they are representational, I seek to highlight the individual character and energetic essence of every bloom I portray. Because my process is slow and meticulous, each painting brings with it a way of slowing down and paying careful attention, something that is hard for most of us to do in our distracting digital age. I have discovered that painting the intricate details of a flower is a meditation that promotes a deep reverence for all living things. Slow, careful looking gives us a chance to awaken to the beauty that is around us, and attending to beauty can be a transformative practice. Fully witnessing the beauty of a flower will generate awe and respect, and lead to respect for all the natural world. If we cannot treasure life on this planet, how can we care for it?

At one time women painted still life because it was the only subject they had access to. Today, I paint flowers because they are potent symbols of the incredible power of the life force on this earth, of strength within seeming fragility, and of the astonishing ability for rebirth and re-emergence that lies within all living things. I want my paintings to be a call to see and pay attention to beauty because it will transform how we walk through this world. By slowing down and looking at things deeply – in my case, by painting flowers – we develop a deep reverence for the living things on this planet and we awaken to the wonders of our precious home.