When we bought our home a few years ago, I wanted to get back to growing things.  I wanted flowers and plants surrounding me..  This turned out to be a massive undertaking. As I started a flower bed on the South side of our garage I realized how awful the soil was.  Not only was it simply contractor fill dirt with chunks of concrete here and there, but it was full of rocks as a previous owner had covered over landscaping pebbles with more dirt and sod rather than remove them.

Such fun.  

But my husband and I persevered and I put in flowers, including several roses bushes.

I’ve always adored roses.  My grandmother had a huge climbing rose, a beautiful rich red color.  I don’t know what kind it was - we just called it Nanny’s Rose bush, but when my grandmother moved to live behind my parents, she took a cutting and grew another rose there.  Subsequently, my parents built a home further in the country, and they took yet another cutting and planted it at their newer home. 

It is a lovely thing, how roses can be propagated.  

Now, I think all roses are beautiful, but artists who want to use them as subjects in still life have a few considerations when choosing which ones to grow.  Some things to consider would be how often they bloom, the types of blooms, color and shape.

Rebloom type

Once Blooming - Some rose varieties only bloom once and then they are gone.   Many rambler roses - which are similar to climbing roses in that they have long canes only bloom once.  They put on a beautiful show, but again.. Only one bloom cycle.

Repeat Bloomers -  These roses bloom every 6 to 8 weeks.  They will flower out in a huge flush, but then it takes time and energy for them to bloom again.  If you are in a zone with shorter summers, this may mean only two or three cycles of bloom before cool weather hits.

Like some other artists, I’ve had many endeavors.  I’ve written a novel.  I started a women’s fiction reviews website back in the day that did pretty well.  I danced, taking lessons in Middle Eastern dance and liked to perform.  I’ve played the piano, not as well as I would have liked, but I did.  I sang in church choir and in community choir.  I’ve done a lot.  It’s been enriching, but also has led me down paths that looped back to the beginning. 

No experience is wasted, or so we are led to believe, but Steven Pressfield in The War of Art warns against things that are shadow professions.  A shadow profession is when you do jobs or activities that fill that creative void, but it’s not what you are truly called to do.  I think there’s a fear about finding that thing that really lights a fire under us, that really fulfills and lets the artist say or show what is their inner world.  What they need to communicate.  

I think we all let fear get in the way.  What if it doesn’t work?  What if people don’t resonate with what we have to put out there.  What if they hate it or think our message is trite? A newsflash occurred to me.  That’s not how it works.  We will never get 100% approval from everyone.  So, the artist’s job is to simply put it out there.  We are not responsible for the reaction to what we create, only the creation.  Others can react, interpret, see what they want to see.  That is not my responsibility.  I am simply responsible for letting the Creative flow through me.  

Sounds very Zen and I suppose it is.  

I’ve been drawing on and off throughout my life in spurts and starts.  When I stopped my day job after a long period of exhaustion and illness, I thought I would go back to writing.  I could do it again, write another novel, but the fire wasn’t there, so I turned back to art.  I did some commissions for game characters.  I had a good time with it, but it wasn’t exactly what I wanted to do. 

So, when the Pandemic hit, I took my check and bought oil paint, an easel and took a course.  I fell in love with painting and I found that thing that I can be passionate about for the rest of my life.  Creating art which I realized was what I looped back to every time a path ended.  So, this time I will stay on this path and follow it.

If you want to follow my journey, sign up to be notified when I post a blog or update this site.  I promise, no looping back this time, and not everything will be like this post.  I will share my experiences, inspirations, technique and life updates.  I hope you will join me.