Description
One of the masters who inspires my work is Joseph Raffael. I get e-mail updates of his work. One day there was this message with a painting of pale roses with pink edges called “Roses Reverie” that knocked my socks off – and it kicked off a hunger in me to paint similar roses. Following this, I took photos of some Moonstone roses in my back yard. There just wasn’t a composition of a group of them like he had painted that worked. But this single rose did. I just loved the way that one petal curled out to the right. It turns out that this painting for me was all about the leaves and not so much the rose. Painting the light on the leaves was why I had to do this one. I left painting the bud to the end, (with most of my paintings I paint the “centerpiece” last) and it was actually anti-climactic. Now, when I look at this painting I see elegance and self-assurance, I think of the first two lines of one of my favorite poems: “St Francis and the Sow” by Galway Kinnell and the powerful meaning this poem has had for me.
January 2007
