The Power of the Small and the Still

Pirouette, Oil on Linen, 12 x 12”

From time to time, people say to me, “So, are you going to paint flowers forever?”

You see, I haven’t always painted flowers. When we lived in San Francisco, my paintings reflected our city lives. I developed a series of paintings called “Portraits in Absentia” in which I used my subjects’ belongings to create portraits. My “Portraits in Absentia” paintings included golf balls, lipsticks, opera scores, stiletto heels and footballs – they were a kind of anthropology in paint.  These paintings were exhibited often and I did many commissions.

Then, in 2017, we left San Francisco and moved to a place we knew and loved – Carmel-by-the-Sea, on the California central coast. Suddenly, I was living in a coastal forest surrounded by  flowers blooming in year-round cottage gardens.

Almost overnight, I was called to paint flowers.  Yet there is far more behind this transformation in my painting practice than new subject matter.  Yes, I am drawn to paint flowers because I find myself living gratefully amongst them. But they are also answering a calling from deep within my being.

Upon arriving in Carmel-by-the-Sea, I joined a meditation and study group at a local church. Very soon after beginning this journey into interior stillness and awareness, I noticed that a veil had been lifted from my way of seeing. Little by little, I became aware of the miracle of each present moment, which is always there to be experienced, if I only allow myself to witness it.

I understand more and more each day that flowers (and their mighty cousins, the trees) are the perfect teachers in the art and power of present moment awareness.  Flowers go quietly about their serious business of budding, blooming and fading – unhurried, unworried, just doing what they are meant to do.  And all the while they shine forth into the world with the gift of their astonishing beauty.  I think I could do well if I continue to learn from the flowers that I paint. So, yes I do think that I will paint flowers for the rest of my life.  And hopefully, become a bit more more like them in the process.

Flaunt, Oil on Linen, 12 x 12”