(This card is a placeholder for Thursday)

This is the petal of a white rose.   The ‘rose’ emerges in several forms throughout this work.   My preoccupation with romance and the dissolution (‘disillusion’) of a romance, probably, manifests itself through the symbols of love.   Other VARIATIONS pieces created during this period (the VALENTINE and LOVE IN THE GARDEN) also contain rose petals; some white, most red.

I had long wondered why we favor roses as flowers of romantic love.   Their perfume is pleasant but not outstanding.   The form of their bloom is not blatantly vaginal or phallic.   One day I left a small vase of roses on my table while I traveled for the weekend.   Upon returning I found the roses had withered.   While cleaning the vase I chanced to smell the remaining water and flowers.   They were rich with amines, the aroma of semen.   The floral ‘high notes’ had evaporated leaving these ‘base notes’, those compounds responsible for our unconscious responses, to be noticeable.   We know what we want, even if we can’t envision it or express it directly.

BACK to the original Interactive Image