Happy Memorial Day

These flowers bloom on a pair of plants that grow outside my studio. The plants are currently not flowering. I took this photo several years ago. I always thought these flowers were rather weird, the way they hang down from droopy leaved bromeliads. They remind me of a pink flower I saw on a banana plant when we were in St. Thomas. They do affect my own artwork. I see similar ones in my own work.

Happy Memorial Day. I worked all day except when I took a little time to go visit my special friend. He's among those we can thank for keeping this country safe for many years. We owe them all a special thank, although a simple thanks seems hardly adequate.

Memorial Day is a serious, important holiday, but it also marks the beginning of summer. Here in Southern California that's not true exactly, at least where the weather is concerned. Sometimes it's cooler on Memorial Day and early June than it is in May. Today was warm enough to sit out in shirt sleeves.

Summer is a time for flowers even though in San Diego there are always flowers blooming somewhere. It does seem like a good season to draw them. I'm amazed at how I can think flowers and they appear out of the tip of my pen. That's all it takes: think flowers, and you get flowers. You sort of feel them into being.

Here in Spanish Village, I see the tourist and the local people taking photos of them. They take photos of the succulents, too, and the artists. We part of the scenery, some of us as unusual as the succulents, I suppose. And fortunately lots of us look just like every other plant.

An Even Older Flower

Here's a painting of a flower I created about six years ago. I'm not even sure where it is now, probably rolled up and standing in some corner at home. It's about five feet wide by eight feet high. It's too big to hang just any old place. I would add more detail to it now if I were working on it.

A large piece of art has a presence that a smaller piece may not have. It depends. I think a piece has to have impact from a distance, but it should be interesting close up as well. I want a person to see my work from across a room and be intrigued enough to come closer. And then it should be interesting enough to view even with your nose up against it.

Interesting. Argueably a flower painted as an exact replia of life isn't as interesting as one with some unusual quirks or a rather distorted shape. When a painted flower is unusual, it takes on its own personality. Its personality is more noticeable than the type of flower. It becomes an individual, not just a face in the crowd.

Isn't that what we all want, to be an individual flower, not just another face in the garden? And we are. Creating art has shown me that. If you ask a group of artists to paint the same subject, like a still life, each one will be different. Even a group of artists making jewelry will create unique pieces; each person has their own "signature." Everyone has something different to say.

Have your say.

Some Things I Love

Flowers. That's a good place to start. Everyone loves them. This particular rose is one that my very special friend grew and gave to me. Even though it is long gone, I have the photo to remember it by.

Most artists probably painted or otherwise created flowers at least once in their lives. In fact we all fall back on nature. What else are you going to paint? Soup cans? Of course there are people and animals, but I would say they are nature, part of the natural world. I've thought about painting buildings, but I usually wind up back at flowers.

Here at Spanish Village there are lots of flowers, mostly the ones that grow up from the succulents that rim the patio. Most of their flowers are small and sedate. But the succulents and their flowers are wonderful for artists, all of them unusual shapes.

I know they influence my work. I can paint green shapes and purple shapes that are suggestive of flowers and they will be instantly recognizable. A botanist would look down his nose at them, but they're more interesting, sort of abstract, but not exactly.

And of course flowers represent sex. Oh, should I say procreation? The plant with the brightest, sexiest flower survives. Darwin thought so. He collected and drew hundreds of plants. I too find them sexy, erotic, sensuous, symbols of love and its attendant sex. As humans and as artists, we look to nature for answers to our own questions. How do other creatures deal with life?

Resurrecting Old Habits Takes Time

I see that it was several months ago that I vowed to begin writing again. Several things changed in my life just about the time I wrote that first post. Now I'm back on track, sort of. I'm still facing challenges in my personal life, but I will work through them.

Writing has always been a good way of working through issues. And, for me, writing in a blog is a good way to look at the positive side of life. I don't want my blog to be full of negativity.

When I opened this blog yesterday, for the first time in several months, my first thought was that I don't like the name. But the more I thought about it, the more I decided it fits my purpose. I intend to use this blog as a continuation of Broom Closet Designs, to talk about my business, but I am more than just my business. There are two separate entities here even though they are entwined. It's like a partnership of two separate entities working together to create a new entity.

This blog will be a partnership between me and my business, but it will include some of the other aspects of my life, of life in general. After all, art is an expression of life. I think we tend to forget that at times.