Study for Thistle Panel - Paris

“Life is bitter and tanned like an apricot from the hills”
For years my mother would tell us these words. We believed they came from some poem by Giono she loved and we did not know about.
We were wrong. It is her poem. Her words. And the way she looked at her life.
Today she has lost all her memories yet remains this thistle she always was proud to be.
You see, the thistle is an emblem for the region where she was born: la Lorraine.
“Qui s’y frotte s’y pique”