As much as I love a cut flower arrangement in my home, I prefer to sit with the flowers where they are alive & blooming. The gift of their thriving energy fills me with hope and peace. It’s where I feel optimism in every fiber of my being.

I love how flowers can teach us so much about ourselves. Take the individual petals for instance. Each one unique, beautiful, essential but when the petals are unified as a whole flower they all truly shine. Some would even say they sing, much like people.

“You have so many beautiful pieces and layers and intricacies that make you so wildly and wonderfully you…”-Nikki Banas

When I paint, I spend a lot of time conversing with each petal finding the perfect light and color by feeling out each intricate nuance of the flower form to truly express its potential.

“When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it’s your whole world. I want to give that world to someone else.” -Georgia O’Keefe

From bloom to photograph to painting the expression of these flowers through paint, it has allowed my creativity to come full circle: finding flower friends and expanding the senses through the study of color and unique flower forms.

As I anticipated the amazing show of peonies just outside my studio window and watched the splendor bloom, flourish, and grow throughout the spring, a simple wonderful idea swelled up inside me. I had to capture that beauty the way it not only looked, but to share the way they felt.

Hope, optimism, and joy to gladden the heart and enliven the soul, given as a gift of inviting, comfortable friendship. And there I was...at home among the flowers.

Where you are always welcome, whether we are a freshly budding friendship or a kinship in full bloom. Here we will breathe in goodness and exhale kindness, alive with color.

Xo- Melissa

To view the “At Home Among the Flowers” collection in full, please visit the link below…