Floral Art

watercolor, acrylic ink and real dried, pressed botanicals: "Pink Flamingo in Bloom"

I shot the original image outside a massive warehouse for the largest food rescue and charity in Israel where literal tons of food is sorted and packed into boxes to be distributed to people of every walk of religion and of every walk of life. The warehouse I got to volunteer at last year while I was in Israel for a few weeks is about an hour or so outside of Tel Aviv. When we were leaving the warehouse to go back on the bus taking my group back to Tel Aviv where we were staying, there was a single but beautifully lush bush w these yellow flowers just growing on the side of what was otherwise a dirt road w a strip of pavement along the middle for vehicles to drive on to get to this warehouse. Back at home in the US a few months later I was looking at the photo I shot an playing around with it digitally and thinking about how complicated and how simple everything is over there, and how even in the midst of war over there with people running to bomb shelters in middle of the night bc the Houthis and/or Hamas were sending rockets our way, there is a sort of resilience— even if it is forced— bc while people talk about resilience as if there’s a choice, there really isn’t much of an alternative but to be resilient. So it becomes a sort of resilience from what is in many ways a broken place. You can still see the good in that resiliencel but it’s a little loopy and misshapen maybe bc there most often just aren’t any good choices.

#pivoines #peonies #floral

I am drawn to beauty that may be missed in our busy world and lives. Close-ups of florals can bring intense beauty.