After a Wildfire: “A Bloom is Coming” Acrylic Painting
Links to learn about fire-following plants:
Regrowth on burnt trees in Australia (see the red shoots on mine), as soon as March 14, 2020: https://www.npr.org/2020/03/14/810152967/australias-fire-ravaged-forests-are-recovering-ecologists-hope-it-lasts
Another generic link: https://www.britannica.com/list/5-amazing-adaptations-of-pyrophytic-plants
Tetons area: ( The Mountain Mallow in the bottom right corner) https://tetonplants.org/2018/08/10/what-blooms-in-wildfire-burns/
California Poppy Superbloom (did the wildfires help??) Fire poppies need smoke! See Orange Fire Poppies in the center panel.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/apr/23/fire-poppies-flower-disaster-wildfires
South African Fire Lilies (bottom left, all red lilies) http://www.indefenseofplants.com/blog/2018/11/27/meet-the-fire-lily
Work in Progress Gallery:
Prints Available:
Almost finished! at 6 feet across, this is my largest painting I’ve ever done. At this point I’m only refining details and adding more flowers, so I don’t anticipate any giant changes.
Beauty inspires hope and healing.
We give bouquets of flowers to the ill and pretty cards to those grieving. We color or create when we are sad, or even just dress up really nicely and sometimes we feel better!
It’s easy for me to make pretty things that might cheer people up, but I also don’t want to ignore the pain of loss or grief. That’s when art that is merely pretty can make me feel disingenuous or even in denial! Of course I’ll still make pretty things because yes.
But this is about hope— the circumstances these days feel like a wildfire, and lordy knows we’ve had plenty of those too.
Wildfires can be natural, but are still devastating. This painting is about the blooms and regrowth that happens afterwards. Called fire-followers, or Pyrophytic Plants
Some seeds can last for almost 10 years underground, and require the heat or smoke from fire to propagate.
As for this painting, I wanted to both honor the devastating loss affecting us all, while bringing hope.
Just as wildfires prune back large trees to let light reach the forest floor, allowing shrubbery and wildflowers to get light, I also believe that our current circumstances, while also horrible, may bring about good changes—ones that needed this kind of pressure to come to light. This is not about seeking out pain or causing suffering, but something good growing to spite it.
So yes, this has been a rough, horrible, sad, meh, no-good time for the majority of us. Even that is an understatement.
But I believe a bloom is coming— a bloom from seeds laying dormant for years that required horrific stress to force them to grow. A bloom of justice, a bloom of support, a bloom of racial equality awareness, a bloom of dreams, a bloom of hope.
Maybe we can ask ourselves a few things:
What is something we prioritize and holds our attention, which might even be a good thing that gained too much attention, that might take away from what God is trying to grow?
What is something needs to be burned up or weeded out anyway?
What issues do we often not address unless there is extrastress or it becomes a “problem”? Injustice and racism fits that far too often. (Seeds needing stress to propagate)
What seeds have we planted in the past that could bloom now? Long waited for prayers, unaddressed issues, things needing counseling, or the healing power of Jesus? Hope, dreams, habits?
Prints:
The original has sold, but you can find prints of this work in my shop here, and for inquiries outside of the USA, please see my Fine Art America page here.
