Homage to Lavender

I'm back to my daily collage practice again -- but this collage is one of the last I did before my brief hiatus. Entitled Homage to Lavender, the intense purple color of those fields of lavender brings the heady fragrance of lavender flowers to my senses. This wonder is called synesthesia, defined by Wikipedia as a neurologically based phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway.

I used to grow lavender, back in my flower-farm days, back when there were just a few varieties. These days there are countless hybrids and cultivars. I saw a lavender plant the other day that had flower heads that were nine or ten inches long! Wow! I think, though, that the best smelling variety is still Grosso. And that's mostly what I grew.

And I do hope to someday get the chance to be standing smack dab in the middle of one of those fields of lavender in Provence or Tuscany...and hopefully not just in my dreams!