Gardenia On Coffee Stained Paper Original

Gardenia On Coffee Stained Paper Original

16"x20"

Watercolor & Gouache on Coffee Stained Paper

Convalescence is a series of white-flower studies created during a period of profound quiet, grief, and internal repair. My work often celebrates color, movement, and the wild botanicals of Texas—but in this collection, I turned toward the starkness of white. In a garden full of brilliant hues, white flowers feel solemn, as if taking space for what cannot be spoken. Vessels for exploring loss.

To me, white flowers symbolize fragility and the quiet ache of what remains unseen. Early in this process I wrote: “In a garden full of colors, white flowers are sad. White flowers symbolize loss. Hidden internal grief like an empty white eggshell—fragile, holding nothing. Nature gives and nature takes as it wills. Much like a woman’s womb.”

These paintings blend line drawing with watercolor, ink, and organic stains—marks that feel aged, weathered, and washed through, like memories softened by time hopefully. The backgrounds hold the shadows of spills, missteps, and uncontrolled blooming, echoing the way grief stains the body in unpredictable shapes.

Each specimen—yucca, moonflower, salix, calla lily, gardenia—appears delicate yet resilient, bending but unbroken. Perhaps their whiteness is not emptiness but a clearing: a place where tenderness, sorrow, and strength coexist. In rendering them, I found a way to honor the parts of healing that are invisible to others yet deeply felt within the self.

As a female artist, educator, and mother, my creative practice often bridges personal narrative with the natural world. I return to botanical subjects not only for their beauty but for the metaphors they carry. Plants hold memory. They are cyclical. They remind us that everything transforms—and that no feeling or state is final. Convalescence is my reflection on grief, womanhood, and the quiet determination to carry on—if not for yourself, then for others.