La Vie en Bleu

For the German Romantic poet Novalis (and many other writers), the "unattainable" blue flower or rose has often served as a symbol of longing and impossibility. Naturally, true blue roses do not exist, and my first work combining block printing and painting itself struggled to come to terms with being. That is, while I was preparing the background and printing my rose design over the blue canvas, I thought that a distressed finish might give the work a sense of antiquity that would enhance its literary connotations, and while applying a new gloss medium, I found myself stripping much of the ink off the canvas, then re-touching and re-printing a few times. The result, I hope, is a mixed-media piece that expresses the mystery of the blue rose and the struggle toward the seemingly unattainable.