These are the events and thoughts that led me to paint this piece.  I do not think however, that this in any way means other interpretations or meanings seen by others are not valid or real.  I think symbolic information resonates its history in a subconscious way. Which parts become conscious is different in each person.  The rose, the image of it, carries all of its meanings for humans throughout time, many of which I am sure are lost to modern knowledge.  But anyone looking at a symbolic rose might pick up on any of these meanings, as a full idea or just a feeling.  It is important to me to validate everyone's person experience with a piece of work and to not let my process somehow negate that.  What the viewer sees in, or feels about the painting is actually in there, I believe, whether I knew I was putting it there or not.
This painting started when I got a religious pamphlet on my door, from some door-to-door missionary.  It had a picture of  Jesus holding a ball of light.  I was intrigued by this idea of holding light.  Light is both a particle and a wave; a substance (on an atomic level) and in our experience, an ephemeral wave length we don't seem to be able to touch.  Light is associated with enlightenment, the Divine, and most anything good.  To be able to hold light, to feel its touch interested me.  I started sketching, and the idea of the light being some sort of mandala as in emanated out, a pattern, seemed to be important, but I wasn't coming up with anything I liked. So I put the sketch away for a few months.
In that time I read The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown, and whatever one thinks of his ideas, I thought it was certainly a very pro-woman, pro-goddess perspective.  This version of history elevates a woman and her flesh to the status of a religious icon (the grail.) Whether or not this is true in any capacity this is a beautiful image: a woman's body as the chalice, holder of divine life.
The Da Vinci Code describes the Rose Line as an invisible straight line, drawn from the North Pole to the South Pole, that represents the original prime meridian (also known as the Paris Meridian - 0 degrees longitude, before it was chosen to run through Greenwich, England).   According to Dan Brown, the Rose Line passed right through the Church of Saint-Sulpice in Paris, over the brass line on its floor (105).   Purportedly it points to the hidden location of the grail.  The Rose Line has also been said to be the bloodline of Jesus Christ carried on through Mary Magdalene.  So "the Rose Line"  refers to a geographic line and also a less tangible "blood-line."  This relationship of the rose, the body a real woman, the blood of a divine man, and something the gives you direction, a guide, all in one phrase was too rich with meaning to pass up. So I began thinking about how to integrate all this symbolism and my earlier holding-the-light sketches came to mind.  The mandala pattern emanating from/around the light was what was stopping me before so I began thinking of the rose, the flower, as the geometric vehicle for this pattern.
The rose just by itself is ripe with symbolism:
The rose has always been valued for its beauty and has a long history of symbolism. The Rose has been associated with goddess throughout history.  It is linked to Aphrodite, Venus and Isis (no doubt more as well).  Early Christians thought the five petals of the rose were akin to the five wounds of Christ. Despite this association, early church leaders were hesitant to adopt it because of its association with Roman pagan ritual. The red rose was eventually adopted as a symbol of the blood of the Christian martyrs. Roses also later came to be associated with the Virgin Mary.
I bought a bouquet of roses and started taking pictures.  I  have always been fascinated with the geometry  of natural forms, its a reoccurring theme in all my work.  In playing around with the roses during the photo-shoot, I cut a few roses in half;  this revealed a really beautiful pattern. I decided to arrange the cut roses into a mandala for my elusive pattern.    The cut rose is also decidedly reminiscent of female anatomy.  Roses are so delightfully fleshy that I really played with the woman in the paintings body merging with the roses.
So with a sketch I was happy with I moved on to the painting.  While I paint I listen to books on tape.  It seems the more distracted my left brain is, the easier I paint.  For this piece I chose to listen to The Red Tent by Anita Diamant.   This beautiful book, if your not familiar with it, is the biblical story of Jacob's family told by his only daughter Dinah.  It was the prefect book to tie the themes of woman, history, flesh and christianity together in my mind as I painted.

"Like any sisters who live together and share a husband, my mother and aunties spun a sticky web of loyalties and grudges," Anita Diamant writes in the voice of Dinah. "They traded secrets like bracelets, and these were handed down to me the only surviving girl. They told me things I was too young to hear. They held my face between their hands and made me swear to remember." Remembering women's earthy stories and passionate history is indeed the theme of this magnificent book. In fact, it's been said that The Red Tent is what the Bible might have been had it been written by God's daughters, instead of her sons. --Gail Hudson

In the driest whitest stretch of pain's infinite desert, I lost my sanity and found this rose. — Rumi

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