THE HEART OF THE MATTER
This painting, done a couple of years ago when I lived in Tyler, Texas, won 2nd place this week in an exhibition currently hanging at the South Texas Art Institute / Museum of South Texas in the annual exhibition of the South Texas Art League. I had this fabulous magnolia tree in my back yard in Tyler and often studied these flowers. They open the first day to this creamy center with these interesting stamens and stigmas curled from the end of each one. Then they close that night and reopen the second day with the stamens scattered along the petals and cone left bared. The Southern Magnolia is one of the more primitive flowers (water lillies being older) and are some of the oldest fossil flowers discovered.
