Mont Tamalpais

“Hurry Hurry!”

Joe said out loud breaking the lonely silence of the shed that had become a summer studio.

As tiresome as it was to travel upstate just to spent all weekend working on an eleventh hour project, to say no to florals was not a possibility.

Not for Joe at least, who had been trained at Atelier Lorenzo as a teenager.

Drawing plants and flowers from nature had been part of the daily curriculum.
Students were made to apply their skills by painting bentwood boxes, perfume bottles and other fancy goods with floral patterns to pay for their education (and some of the expensive jewellery the famous fashion designer who had founded the school and named it after their child enjoyed so much).

The industrious speed with which petals and leaves would emerge on paper at the hands of Joe was astonishing.

Still, completing 5 patterns in 3 days was a challenge.

It was an excessive demand even for dear Rose (Bertin) who needed them quickly so they could be printed onto polyester fabric and made into lampshades for Anne Lowe’s apartment sitting on top of the Babylon cinema building.

Not only was the decorator a close and convincing friend and Anne an important client, Joe was also keen to finally be part of a project that would involve the virtuoso hands of the craftspeople of the powerful shademaker’s guild.

The flowers Joe was painting using sable hair brushes, did not resemble the flowers in the garden enclosing the studio.

(Daffodils had started to blossom next to the little stream in the back; meadowsweets were in full bloom in front of the shed.)

They were not carnations, poppies nor forget-me-nots, but flowers and painted flowers at that.The hand guided the brushstroke following the memory of all the different movements that had given shape to flowers in the past.

Yet those floral foliage amalgams would have not seen the light of day were it not for the daffodils and meadowsweets surrounding Joe.

In the city inspiration was arduous work, but in the garden it just occurred.

Sunk in these thoughts Joe finalised all 5 of the flower patterns.

The overlapping sheets on the table gave an impression of delicate abundance.

If the the shademakers could spare some of the fabric, Joe thought Vavara (Stepanova) could hopefully be convinced to cut one of those very charming pleated skirts out of the leftover cloth.