Live Jurying Item #3

Emily’s portrays a cluster of wild roses, a flower that grows untended along paths, fences, and old homesteads in Newfoundland. The painting is named for my grandmother, Emily, who tended similar bushes behind her house. As a child I would bury my face in the blossoms during summer visits carrying their scent with me into memory. In adulthood, the roses became tied to the act of caring for her home after she passed. For me, this has transformed a simple flower into a marker of legacy, belonging, and continuity. Emily’s is more than a floral still life; it is an invocation of place, a meditation on inheritance, and a recognition of the intimate ways natural forms shape identity and memory in Newfoundland and Labrador.