Somewhat Wild

But Not Really

These posts are exercises in free association, spurred by one image as a starting point.

I've described the wild acres beyond our back yard in previous posts. Since there is no fence, it's sometimes hard to tell where the free will of nature ends and the struggle to impose our will on nature begins.

We get a lot of free-booter wild plants spreading throughout the back in the spring. I dubbed one variety I like very much as it blooms a wild Iris. The more I saw real Irises, the more I came to think this was not one. But I kept playing with that name -- Irish Rose, Iris Rose, Wild Iris Rose.

"Wild Iris Rose" ... free association and imagery began to form a young lady, well, perhaps not a "lady", but young, Irish and a little wild. I played with that theme for quite a while, but couldn't put Iris in the picture.

In the meantime, I thought Van Gogh's portraiture -- all line and color, "modernist" and rebellious while gorgeous in color -- and of course his iris paintings.

I kept coming back to that idea, over the months, each time I saw one of the faux-irises in the yard. But I still had no model for that moody lass.

Finally, as I was thumbing through Daughter's recent post of photos, there was Iris!

I am a shameless thief of Daughter's stuff, though I do work at it to make it my own.

I combined Van Gogh's Irises, a makeover of Daughter into a redhead (and a few other changes here and there), an industrial brick wall for a background, and there you have it: "Wild Iris Rose".

These things don't come for free, though.

As I looked over Vincent Van Gogh's output of work again for this painting, I had to admit to myself that it was his story that appeals as much or more than his art.

The poor, angst-ridden man who cut off his ear (actually, a lobe). Everyone "knows" that story.

Combine the story of struggle, illness, the exhilaration of revolution (Impressionism and Post-Impressionism), stir in elements of political correctness and it becomes very hard to say "But he doesn't draw very well. His color is brilliant, but many of his compositions are just plain clumsy."

Maybe it's aging. Maybe I'm becoming the crabby old fart who says things for effect.

Or maybe, at this late age, I'm beginning to admit to myself what I really think.