Larysa Bernhardt
My name is Larysa Bernhardt and I’m a farmer/florist/artist. I started growing flowers because somehow it felt they could visually communicate what I felt. Beauty, fragility, resilience, tragedy of magical thing ended too soon. I painted pictures with my flowers trying to translate feelings into petals.
Before I knew it I grew so many flowers I started offering them to florists to make some money to buy more varieties of flowers...tulip fever comes to mind. You absolutely, positively can’t stop.
Of course, climate of central Midwest doesn’t let me garden year around and switching to paint in a winter was natural to me. Paint gives you same flexibility with color and shape, and it brings to life your wildest dreams.
We may not realize it, but in our mind everything is symbolic. Name, color, scent, shape create an idea in our brains of what it means for us or what to be expected. Straight shapes give off a sense of proudness and bendy shapes feel sad.
Beauty comes with heartache as therer are always strings attached. My favorite time of the year is when my peony field bursts into a bloom but even in the midst of it I know it will be over too soon.
Or autumn, it’s so short here. Couple glorious weeks and it slips out the door, carrying your heart in its pocket, to make you wait another year.
Being able to express your feelings through different mediums is a blessing and a curse. In artist’s mind everything gets amplified. I painted non stop during lockdown. It was that or screaming into a pillow.
I consider myself incredibly lucky person, having found many creative ways to express myself. I can pour myself into a painting, or flower arrangement, and take a step back, and see it as a self portrait, a snapshot of me in that time and space. And I move on, but part of me stays, captured under the coat of varnish.
