THE TRIO OF ROSES

I think some paintings hold a little more weight than others. Not necessarily because they’re the biggest, the most technically impressive, or even the ones I spent the most time on. Sometimes it’s simply because of what was happening in my life when I made them. The Trio of Roses will always be one of those paintings for me. To me, these three roses represent a new season, and the story behind them is actually one of the reasons I still hold this painting so close.

The flowers themselves came from a bouquet my boyfriend surprised me with one day. Since we started dating, he’s always been the type to bring me flowers, and over time I started noticing how much meaning they held beyond just being beautiful for a few days sitting on the counter. The roses in that bouquet were lavender and almost magenta, which made them even more special to me because lavender has always been my favorite color. At first, I tried preserving one of the flowers in resin, but I kept coming back to the idea of painting them. I wanted to take something that was temporary and make it permanent in a completely different way.

So for this painting, I physically painted the flowers he gave me and then pressed the flowers directly into the canvas. The petals left behind their own outlines and texture, almost like an imprint of the actual flowers themselves. I loved that I wasn’t painting a rose from memory or trying to recreate a perfect flower. I was using the flower itself to leave its mark behind. Something that was once alive and eventually fading could still become part of something permanent. There’s something about that process that feels really symbolic to me now, because life works in a lot of the same ways.

We spend so much time trying to hold onto certain moments exactly as they were. Certain people, seasons, versions of ourselves, things we wish could stay untouched. But life doesn’t really work that way. Things bloom, things change, things end, and new things take their place. That doesn’t make the season that came before it any less beautiful. Sometimes a season is meant to leave a mark on us instead of staying forever. That’s what these roses represent to me. A new beginning, but also everything that had to happen for that beginning to exist.

This painting was a new beginning in my art too. It was the first time I really dedicated an entire piece to florals, and I even started playing with little lily pads, which was completely new for me at the time. I was experimenting with ideas that I didn’t fully understand yet, but I knew I wanted to follow them. Looking back now, I can see this was one of the first pieces where my own voice started to come through. I wasn’t thinking about finding a niche or trying to make something that fit into a certain category. I was taking something meaningful to me and figuring out how I wanted to translate it onto a canvas, and somehow that became the beginning of something much bigger.

Since then, I’ve found myself coming back to the feeling this painting gave me. The florals, the water, the little pieces of scenery, taking something from real life and turning it into something layered, textured, and a little more abstract. A lot of the scenery I’ve painted since then has been inspired by that feeling. It’s funny how you can make something without realizing you’re creating the beginning of a whole new direction. At the time, I just knew I wanted to preserve the flowers. Now I know I was also preserving a moment in my own life. A moment that represented love, growth, a new chapter, and a season that felt different from the ones before it.

And I think that’s why I still hold this painting so close. It wasn’t just my first dedicated floral painting. It was one of the first times I looked at something I had made and felt like I was finally seeing pieces of myself in it. I didn’t need to have my entire style figured out, and I didn’t need to know exactly where my art was going. I just needed to keep following what felt true to me. That’s something I understand a lot more now. New seasons don’t always announce themselves when they begin. Sometimes you only recognize them once you’ve already grown into them.

The roses were temporary, but their mark stayed. The bouquet faded, but the memory became part of a painting, and that painting became part of the artist I’m becoming. But the best part is that this doesn’t feel like the end of the story. It feels like the beginning. I can look at this painting now and see how much has changed since I made it, but more than anything, I can see how much is still waiting for me. There are paintings I haven’t imagined yet, places I haven’t painted, ideas I haven’t tried, and seasons I haven’t lived through. And honestly, that’s exciting to me.

I’m not as afraid of not knowing exactly where my art is going anymore. I think there’s something thrilling about leaving room for it to surprise me. The Trio of Roses reminds me that a new season doesn’t have to be something you’re scared to step into. Sometimes it’s something you get to look forward to. Something blooming right in front of you, something you can’t quite see yet, but you know is coming. This painting was one of the first marks of a new season in my art, and looking at it now makes me even more excited for the places my work will take me and for all the places life can take us when we’re willing to step into the unknown.