Roses and the West
Windows into the West began with questions.
One of my earliest questions was why Western artists paint hollyhocks. It sounds like a simple question, but it led to many more.
When did certain flowers become associated with the West? What did they mean to the people who planted, wore and decorated with them? Which photographers, artists, advertisers and craftspeople carried those flowers into the imagery of the West?
I am not interested in using flowers simply because they are beautiful. I want to know why they were chosen, what they communicated and how they became part of the imagery we now recognize as Western.
Flowers will appear throughout every chapter of Windows into the West. Sometimes they will be the subject of a painting. Sometimes they will appear as a pattern, a border or a small clue within a larger story.
That is the work of Windows into the West. To begin with something familiar, look more closely and follow it backward until I understand where it came from, who shaped it and how it came to mean what it does.
This week, I am starting with roses.
-Kim
Image Credits
Costen & Sterling, My Own Wild Western Rose, sheet music cover featuring Francklyn Wallace, 1900. New York Public Library Digital Collections. Public domain.
Annie Oakley, 1888, Wikimedia Commons
Buffalo Bill’s Gauntlets, Buffalo Bill Center of the West
International Horticultural Exhibition and Buffalo Bill’s Wild West, William F. Cody Archive
