When I started this painting, "study the wildflowers, how they grow" was on my mind. (I mean both the phrase that appears in two of the synoptic gospels and the series of paintings I've been gathering using the phrase as a title). Most of the paintings in the series have been watercolors on cold pressed paper, but I have also used acrylics thinned with water to a point at which they begin to act like watercolors. In all the paintings in the series, I've allowed the paint to flow with minimal intervention, allowing the flowers to move (as wildflowers do) the way liquid moves on paper. In this painting, though, I started with a surface that is not so absorbant as cold pressed paper and not so tolerant of being soaked. In this case, I did not dampen the surface and added no water to the paint, allowing it to behave more like oils than watercolors. Acrylics dry quickly, so they more or less dictate an alla prima technique -- any mixing that takes place on the surface has to be done on first attempt. There's always an element of surprise in painting as in writing, and working with acrylics (or alla prima with oils) can be like writing without revision: first thought, best thought. What emerged as I painted this piece brought a rose, Chicago Peace, to mind. I had been contemplating how much wildness remains in even the most cultivated of flowers, and this image seemed perfectly at home in that stream of thought -- especially since that stream flows into (or out of?) the larger body of thought about the meaning of "city." The title invites contemplation of the flower and how it grows but also of the city whose motto is "urbs in horto."