Flowers of Hope
How these four canvases came together.
When I thought it couldn’t get worse… it did. Portland suffered from a lot of destruction downtown and nationalized protests. Then the wild fires came and Portland was under smoke for a couple of weeks. I couldn’t see my neighbor’s house and the smoke leaked into my old 1911 house. All of the sudden seeing any friends, indoor or out, was impossible. I closed off my house and stayed in one room with my studio air cleaner. A continuous claustrophobia overwhelmed me. I felt like I couldn’t breath.
I Can’t Breathe
About two weeks later, the smoke started to lift and I drove downtown where all of the destruction had happened. Along with the destruction I felt a sense of hope. The murals on the boarded up buildings, especially at the Apple store in downtown Portland, exhibited an honest energy of inequality and hope. George Floyd’s last words “I Can’t Breathe” was the central theme. It was a somber moment. I walked slowly down the entire mural and read many words of frustrations as well as words of love and hope in this era of inequality.
Apple Store mural with George Floyd’s last words, I Can’t Breath”, Portland Oregon
Close up of the Apple Store Mural, BLM, in Portland Oregon
Hope
In my studio I had been deep into the concept of the renewal of life after death (or destruction). The rejuvenation of an eternal bouquet of flowers in my studio was the inspiration. It seemed every time flowers in my bouquet opened their beautiful face before their petals drifted down to the floor, more flowers appeared on my front porch. This is the central theme of my latest body of work “Rejuvenation” dedicated to my friends for their support during a time of recovery after invasive surgeries.
Seeing the mural downtown brought up many more emotions about life and death and the inequality in life. It made sense for me to paint on different sizes of canvases and put them together in one painting. It was a marriage of divided flowers that didn’t go together, but the elements put together gave a sense of hope.
This painting is part of my Rejuvenation: My Bouquet exhibition in Washington DC. It opens May 21st, 2021 at Calloway Fine Art & Consulting.