Soulful Musings & Thoughts About Painting

Tradition says that the sunflower represents "respect". In my world they represents that plus so much more -- a symbol of my Nebraska homeland, laden with earthiness and familial connections. These flowers grew abundantly in the wild area of our back yard and beyond where we backed up to at the "hills" ... a hillside pasture covered with soap weed (yucca plant), tumbleweeds, bunchgrass, wild clover, some kind of sticker grass we called "spears",  and other native plants I don't recall. We'd occasionally explore up there, and my brother would scramble up hillsides to fly the box kites that he and Dad made out of light wood and newspapers on the kitchen table. At the time, the area wasn't populated at all. We just had to be on the lookout for rattlesnakes (!!) and the occasional black Angus... they were big and we were in their domain so it was best to hightail it out of that area when you'd see them. Sunflowers bring back many pleasant memories for me, so they are often on my still life table ready for a new painting to begin.

(This painting is sold.)