A Note on "Food for Flowers"

Art should show not only a sensitive arrangement of form, line, and color, but also a purpose of thought. To speak of these elements as separate entities, however, is not accurate. Form and thought are the work.

What I tried to portray in “Food for Flowers” is the importance of past generations to present ones. I see human life analogous to that of flowers. We love the form, fragrance, and color of a flower in season, but as the flower matures and loses its color and life, we no longer cherish it. We push the ugly, wilted, dying thing from our view. So do we react to people. We are interested in the young and apathetic to the old. There is beauty in being young, ugliness in being old. To be beautiful we work incessantly at staying young. We paste artificial petals in place of those that wilt and fight maturing in our season. With fearing we look to age as a time of uselessness, shelving, and rest-homes.

This blind classification fails to notice that in age lie the seeds of new flowers and life. Nature does not die or fade with the passing of a season—there is beauty in both the spring and the fall. The seeds that lie hidden in the wilted plant are also beautiful and important to life. The new exists and is made stronger because of the old and forgotten. Past flowers and seasons are the food for new flowers and new seasons.

“Food for Flowers” is my representation of this philosophy. Since past generations have spoken to us as from the dust, I concentrated on things beneath my feet. I found some interesting pictures of shapes created under pressure and incorporated them into my drawing. The arms and head of the human form came first, then later the legs. It seemed that once the idea was established the picture formed itself.