Flower Lady

Dorota Solarska

Interview by L. Valena

Via email, October 27 - November 6, 2021

Please describe the prompt that you received.

The prompt was a song, titled ‘New Flower’. When I listened to it for the first time, my associations were: delicate, dreamy, lonesome. I also had an impression there is a lot of space in this song - it’s hard to explain, but I almost felt like making a journey in space.

What was your first reaction to it?

I listened to it on and on and on, to really feel into it, to fall into it, to forget about what surrounds me, and really immerse myself in the music.

What happened next?

I always think in images, rarely in words. So I started to rotate my mind around the words that I chose as keywords from the song: flower, delicate, dreamy, lonesome. Almost immediately, a portrait emerged in my head: a woman with flowers on her head instead of hair; a Woman-Flower. I switched on the song again and listened to it through the whole process of drawing, on and on. At first, the Woman-Flower was a bit melancholic; then, I started to add more and more details, and made her look a bit more sad - or lonely? She didn’t look lost, though. I kept adding more and more flowery details, and when I thought I’m finished, another word as associations emerged from the song: space and trip. So I added some trippy lines to surround the Woman-Flower; we don’t know anymore if she’s hanging in space, traveling in space, is surrounded by sound, or maybe something else.

You said in particular that the Woman-Flower looks a bit sad or lonely, but that she doesn’t look lost. Can you say why it feels important to you that she doesn’t look lost?

I think it belongs to my personal story - I really hate to feel lost; whether in life or in art. Of course, I’m aware you cannot make good art without being lost a bit, but for me, this process is more like being lost and found at the same time. Feeling lost is for me close to helplessness, and this is a very challenging state for me. Sometimes, when I feel helpless, I draw human figures without arms or hands. That means for me that I cannot really be in touch with reality, shape it, even to some extent control it.

I notice that the figure seems to have wings? Is that the case? Can she fly? Is that how she travels in space?

Yes, exactly, she’s able to fly and through it, move and travel in space. I see the movement more like an up and down motion that I associate also with my personal story of bipolar illness. You’re either very high or extremely low. Maybe that’s why the Flower Lady is also a bit sad; these kind of travels can make you…really tired.

What is your relationship with (or feelings towards) flowers?

A complex one. First, I try not to collect cut flowers, because when I see them slowly dying in my apartment, I feel sad. Secondly, flowers for me symbolize the passing of time - they look beautiful but then…they quickly wither and die. They also remind me of my own travel in time - I’m also like a flower, but in slow motion; I’m getting older every day, and there’s no going back; like flowers that cannot just return to their innocent beauty. Because of my bipolarity, my mental and emotional state can change within days from an exquisite, beautiful, blossoming and tempting into down, grey, hopeless and dead inside; that also reminds me of a process which flowers undergo. And I also think about their fragility - they are alive in spring or summer, just to disappear in autumn and winter. I miss them then. I think I also have a sort of caring relationship with meadow flowers. I would almost like to tell them - please don’t die when winter comes, please, do not disappear. Will I find you here the next year, in the same place?…

Is there anything else related to this process, or the piece that you made, that we haven’t talked about?

I don’t think so…

Do you have any advice for another artist approaching this project for the first time?

Let yourself be surprised. Tune in to the piece you received. Don’t think. Feel. Trust the process, even if you have no idea where it will lead you.

Call Number: Y67MU | Y68VA.soFlo

Dorota Solarska, an outsider artist living in Switzerland. She writes books, theatre plays, articles and a blog: www.bipolarlandscape.com. In addition, she’s an active visual artist, exhibited in Switzerland and Poland.