Back in June, I wrote about working on larger pieces and trying to find the motivation to get past the “awkward teenage” phase of these works in progress. (Thanks to Charlie and Janina for your ideas!) Six weeks later, one of those pieces has finally reached adulthood!
“Floral Parisian Employment” is an ink and watercolour sister-piece to my 2015 “Parisian Affliction of Floral Indecision”. They are two views of a big corner flower shop in the Montparnasse neighbourhood of Paris. I was sitting on an open-air tour bus, when we came upon this location of Monceau Fleurs. The shop was so impressive to me, because such large floral shops are unusual in prime downtown locations where I’ve lived. It’s hard to think of a shop of this magnitude in downtown Toronto! I snapped a number of photos, and as the tour continued, I began to notice more of these shops as well as people all over Paris carrying flowers along with the rest of their day’s purchases – again, not a common sight in my city. I got curious about my own views about flowers, and beauty, in general. Had I relegated flowers to the only-special-occasions list ? Yes, along with lots of other things! When I got home from this trip, I started adding flowers to my grocery list… and started using my “good” dishes, and opened those “saver” bottles of wine…
Sometimes it takes getting away from home for me to notice where more beauty could be injected into daily living! What about you?
Parisian Floral Employment (2016)
Framed with its sister piece from 2015 – both pieces will be featured at my booth at Art On The Street in Guelph, Ontario this Saturday and are available for purchase now at the Shop tab.
A Pair of Paris
This is a beautiful piece, Marion! Such fine detail, I feel like I’m going blind! LOL. Good luck for this Saturday…they are an enticing pair. Cheeri-hoo! 🙂
I agree with you about trips bringing us more awareness of those little things that are missing from our daily lives, like flowers in the home on a regular basis. I certainly haven’t bought any for a while, but I do use the fallen leaves and dead leaf branches from the jungle, my garden as my ‘flowers’. At present, I have two small vases with simple different plants branchings; appropriate for winter. Yes, I enjoy explorations as I do tend to stop and look a lot — other people’s front gardens to see their design style, or not, the way a shop has made itself beautiful to entice clients and so on…always done that!
Hi, Janina: Thanks for the show well-wishes! It’s the morning after, and the show was a wonderful experience – your good vibes reached across the waters! And thanks for the kind words about the piece! Can’t tell you how much I appreciate your ongoing support.
Hey, glad you had fun at the show! Sales? And, I appreciate your good work… 🙂
Yes, lots of sales! I was really pleased.
Excellent, and good to hear… 😀
Makes me want to get on a plane straight to Paris. Beautiful work.
Thank you, Melba!