Growing, Inspired by "Where This Flower Blooms"

If you had asked me during my toughest moments if I would go back in time to avoid those hardships altogether, I would have told you “yes” without hesitation. The death of a loved one, shifting friendships, and numerous setbacks in both academics and personal pursuits… Like many going through difficulties, I sought an escape. But as I've grown older, I've come to appreciate how much I’ve grown in character through these experiences, and for that, I could not be more grateful. 

In Tyler, The Creator's song "Where This Flower Blooms," he shares similar sentiments, reflecting on his challenging past with lyrics such as, “Let's take it back to them days, counting sheep on Sadie Hannah's floor / 80 dollar profit from the coffee I poured, Rent-A-Center calling every day,” contrasting with his growth, symbolized by 'Rooted from the bottom, bloomed into a tree.' This song, with its slower instrumentals, requires me to be in a specific mood to fully immerse myself. I often found myself taking the chorus quite literally, creating vivid images in my mind to accompany the music. The catchiest part of the song, which was the repetition of the lyrics, ‘I rock, I roll, I bloom, I grow,’ inspired me to envision the scene unfolding similarly to a claymation: a tree slowly grew taller, its branches stretching out until they had blossoming flowers. 

When I first considered my initial etching on the glass, I contemplated drawing the flowers I imagined. However, upon deeper reflection on the song's themes and the challenges I've encountered on my journey as a woman, I chose to replace the flowers with pears. The inspiration came from the day before I started this project as I remembered my art teacher showed our class one of her favorite acrylic pieces. This painting portrayed her older self handing a pear to her younger self. Her explanation of how pears have historically symbolized femininity lingered with me and inspired the symbolism in my artwork. 

I didn’t realize how I interpreted some of the lyrics in this song verbatim until I took a closer look such as 'Rooted from the bottom, bloomed into a tree.' It feels like I processed this subconsciously, but it allowed me to imagine and add my own perspective, which made it more personally meaningful and specific in my project. The lyrics, “Keep it in my branches, family can eat, Favorite color green, energy is strong,” surprised me as it also resonated with the pear symbolism in my artwork.

The glass etching process felt like it took forever, stretching over a week and a half. Early on, I realized that I needed to deepen the shading significantly to get the ink to show up properly on paper. That’s why I chose to use hatching to shade the tree and the pear. My method involved sketching out the design on paper first and then assiduously tracing it onto the glass. 

The exciting part was using the etched glass almost like a stamp in printmaking. I could apply printmaking ink and create multiple pieces with the same design. Each artwork was unique, as I gave it its own color scheme and individualized idiosyncratic details. For instance, in the first piece, I opted for a monochromatic theme and added a sun in the background using mixed media. The second piece leaned towards a warm, coffee-like color scheme. The last one was the most enjoyable to create as I used acrylic paint to craft clouds in the backdrop. What made it interesting was utilizing another piece of etched glass to imprint those clouds onto the sky background of the painting before layering the etching of the pears on top. I wanted each piece to speak to people individually, inviting them to connect with the one that resonated most. Whether it was the calm simplicity of the monochromatic piece, the warmth of the coffee-colored tones in the second one, or the lively blend of etched pears against a painted sky in the last one, each artwork offered a unique entry point into the themes of growth.

Although it was a challenge to write a description to go along with this painting, I found that simplicity to be a therapeutic source of relaxation. It served as a way to distract myself from the situations going on in my life. Writing these descriptions for my paintings can be really challenging for me. I sometimes worry that my words come across as too formal or fail to capture the inspiration behind my work; this was especially true for this project. It might look simple at first glance, but the vivid imagery of the tree that came to mind while listening to this song had me lying on the ground for hours with the track on loop.

• Artwork name: Growing

• Song name: Where This Flower Blooms

• Medium: Etching Glass, Printmaking Ink