Chuck of Daisyville

Today, as I was photographing my Berlin café experience, I realized that my computer screen was cycling through my Chuck Close series. I was taking a break from writing my book in which Chuck Close figures prominently, and there he was, staring at me, and there I was, photographing him, and there were the flowers on my table, both the flowers I hate – roses – and the flowers I love – daisies – both of which figure prominently in my book.

So I thought perhaps it was a sign for me to excerpt a few lines from my book just as I have shared my photographs.


For instance, when Chase arrived with a dozen red roses, I lost our story. I hate roses. I hate red roses even more. They are such a cliché that even saying they are a cliché is a cliché. It was possible, however, that Chase meant well. Since he was not a mind reader, I thought I might help him understand my meaning. I told him I loved daisies. White daisies, I said. Like snow flakes twinkling in the dim light of a streetlamp.

Later, Chase left this message a cherry-red Post-It note, “The rose is a classic. Look it up.”

Had he been an accountant, or a lawyer, or anything other than what he was – a painter – I might have indulged his running to the convenient rose. But some messages are too painful to receive, so I took the roses to my studio, put them in an old turpentine container that I refused to fill with water, and called them vermillion.

And then I looked up the rose on the Internet, locating a site devoted to flower meanings. According to the site, a rose means beauty. No surprise there. Next, I looked up daisies. A single daisy means innocence while a double daisy means affection. And a wild daisy means, “Dost thou love me?” Had Chase and I communicated in the language of flowers, I might have given him a clutch of wild daisies in response to his dozen roses. If he’d had the courage to be honest, he might have replied with a single fig marigold, which means coldness of heart, to which I would have responded by filling every corner of the apartment with vases of southernwood, signifying pain. The problem was not that I had misread the signs, it was that I closed my eyes and wished I were illiterate.