{"id":39034,"date":"2023-08-19T00:01:41","date_gmt":"2023-08-19T07:01:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/?p=39034"},"modified":"2026-06-06T04:51:19","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T04:51:19","slug":"are-we-works-of-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/are-we-works-of-art\/","title":{"rendered":"The Question of Flowers: Are They — Are We — Works of Art?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"are<\/a>
A Westcountry ‘Towering Inferno’ lupine is blooming like mad in my front yard as I write. Flowers like these, are they — are we — works of art? Photo by Barbara Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Nature has an urge to flower. It can’t stop itself. And right now it\u2019s summertime in the San Francisco Bay Area and things are blooming like mad. So bear with me if my thoughts turn once again to my brand-new gardens and the question of flowers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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I take a lot of flower photos. If a photo comes out well, I label it “art shot.” But, the artist wannabe in me finds flowers too nice and too darned pretty to be the subject of Real Art. That perfect rose I just captured? It’s way too perfect.<\/p>\n

Real Art Needs Grit<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Whether it’s a photo, a painting or prose, Real Art needs grit. It needs to be problematic. It needs tension. It needs woe and desolation. Something has to be askew.<\/p>\n

Flowers, by their very nature, fail the tension test. They never seem troubled to me, or even ruffled.<\/p>\n

Whenever I find myself face-to-face with a plant in bloom, be it a hot house orchid or the forget-me-not growing up through the cracks in the pavement next to our mailbox, I am beguiled by its perfection. By its completeness.<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t take my eyes off the thing.<\/p>\n

\"are<\/a>
A Shasta daisy ‘Crazy Daisy’ growing in my side yard. Bred for frilly petals, some of the plant’s blossoms are reverting to the cultivar’s ancestry. Photo by Barbara Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There is something about a pansy in bloom or an Iceland poppy nodding from its stem — something that reckons on being looked at.<\/p>\n

Just as fragrance is meant to be breathed, and texture fingered, so is a flower meant to capture the eye. A bee\u2019s eye. A hummingbird\u2019s eye. Your eyes and mine.<\/p>\n

Flowers and the Wisdom Traditions — Too Optimistic?<\/strong><\/h5>\n

A flower in full bloom has something in common with the teachings of the world\u2019s great wisdom traditions: they are so, so\u00a0nice<\/em>. So unapologetically upbeat. Yes, they announce, God is actually, really and truly in her heaven and all is right with the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well,\u201d Julian of Norwich heard Jesus saying saying to her.<\/p>\n

Jon, when he was alive, saw flowers differently. He would rather I not bring cut flowers from the garden into the house. He couldn\u2019t bear their evanescence. They made him sad.<\/p>\n

He knew that sooner or later, like the humans in his life who had passed away — and more recently Jon himself — they would one day succumb to their mortality and die. Flowers do that. Death and decay are embedded in that poppy’s DNA, and in ours.<\/p>\n

Are We Works of Art?<\/strong><\/h5>\n

And so, yeah. It turns out that perfect rose does indeed signify woe and desolation, after all.<\/p>\n

Does that make it a work of art? Does that make Jon, and you and me — destined as we are for decay — works of art?<\/p>\n

More about the nature of things — and the human condition — at, “I Let the Maytag Man Into the House (During Covid) and Here’s What I Learned About Human Nature.”<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0Also, “Geoff Machin: “We Go Looking for God, When We Could Be Having a Beer.”<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

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Discovered on a walk — milkweed about to bloom. Photo by Barbara Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"are-we-works-of-art<\/a><\/p>\n

Flowers, by their very nature, never seem troubled to me, or even ruffled. Area they — are we — works of art?\u00a0 Read more.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48913,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,14],"tags":[376,2726,34,1306,405,21,29,2727,2728],"class_list":["post-39034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-my-rocky-spiritual-journey","category-widowed","tag-art","tag-crazy-daisy","tag-dont-miss","tag-flower-garden","tag-gardens","tag-god","tag-jon","tag-lupine-towering-inferno","tag-perfection"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39034"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39034\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48917,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39034\/revisions\/48917"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}