John Warren Travis
Dahlia Bleu, 2020 - Tryptic
Acrylic on Canvas
49.25”W x 49.25”H x 2.5”D - each piece
Artist Statement
I came to California in 1960, after spending my adolescent years in the Rio Grande valley in and around El Paso, Texas. Needless to say, the verdant profusion of California plants and trees was awesome.Hanging baskets of fuchsias, hens and chicks brimming over the edge of flowerbeds, palm trees lining the entrance to Stanford, the Berkeley Rose Garden. This bounty of nature was a decided contrast to the desert where I was raised.After a time, like many of us in California, I became inured to these glories, flower stalls, flower shops, farmers markets, tubs of sunflowers, buckets of dahlias. I grouped them together as I wended my way through the sixties and the summer of love. “Be sure to wear a flower in your hair” was just a lyric.The dahlia was not fully on my radar back then. There was the blue dahlia or was it the black dahlia!?Good titles for movies, but?Last year I went to a lecture and tour of city hall conducted by Crispin Hollings, and I learned that the dahlia is the official flower of San Francisco. It is also the official flower of Mexico. After that, I began to notice them and, of course, Googled that species and in what profusion they exist; there are even roadside dahlias.The variety is amazing, having only eight chromosomes can really make a difference. The terrible beauty/contradictions evident nature, gasp?Big question in this endangered environment is how long will this sturdy herbaceous tuberous plant survive?So let us bring this ravishing beauty onstage. And have her take a bow.Herewith, my take, my impression, my feelings about this paradoxical dahlia. It could certainly survive longer than many of its brethren. I can truly say. I have great regard for the dahlia.