My Art History

Follow The Flowers

Last week I showed you the house I grew up in. Not only was it a work of art inside, but outside our backyard was a beautiful mess of flowers; Hydrangeas, Peonies, Forsythias, Azaleas, Rhododendrons, Tulips, Daffodils, Dogwood trees, there was even a pond full of Coi and Goldfish. Here's some pics I took over the years..

My favorite flower is the Bearded Iris. We had a ton of them in our yard when I was a kid, both yellow and purple, although I favor purple. I'm not quite sure what draws me to them so much. Perhaps the way they bloom so tall and then seem to literally swell and overflow with such a vibrant delicacy.

My whole life I've been drawing or painting or creating something with my hands. When I was a teenager I really liked drawing/painting iris's. Here's a few pieces of art from when I was 14 or so..

My mom always told us to "Follow The Flowers". That's what she did when she graduated college, followed the flowers around the country in a VW bus(or something like that). This is her at my age, a real life hippie. Isn't she gorgeous?

I think her little saying came to mean more than just going on a road trip, to me it meant follow my heart and be true to myself always. So my first tattoo was for her..

Originally hand drawn by me, I had the artist add the word "Follow" along the stem. My mom was pretty excited when I showed it to her. She and I had a rough couple of years, so it's kind of amazing that we're so close today. Even though things weren't always easy growing up, I can still take so many wonderful lessons away from my childhood. I can chose to dwell in bad memories of the past or I can chose to live in the marvelous teachings that my hippie mother passed down during the good times. I think today I'll just Follow the Flowers.

Love,

MacK Mars

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