What if a garden is more than a place? What if it is a teacher, a sanctuary, a mirror? Petals and Presence is a series born from such questions—paintings created not to document flowers, but to embody the feeling of being with them. Of standing still. Of listening.

These contemporary mixed media works—built with layers of collage, acrylic, and intuitive mark-making—evoke the deep, quiet beauty I’ve come to know as a flower grower at Sage and Solace. Their compositions are contemplative, rooted in the rhythm of planting, blooming, and decay. In these pieces, petals become gestures, leaves become memory, and space becomes breath.

In a world flooded with noise, the garden invites us to return to our senses. To trace the curve of a branch, to follow the flicker of a bird’s wing, to learn presence from the slow unfolding of a bloom. These works are not just visual—they are invitations. To see, to feel, to be still long enough to hear what the garden is saying.