December 1st, I had gone to the market in search of tulips, needing a reminder in the darkest, deepest days of autumn that spring would eventually return.

But then, there they were. The surprise of them, out of place, out of season. Bright, almost obscenely crimson peonies, their stems drooping slightly from the heaviness of the petals. Lush, sensuous, the Marilyn Monroe of flowers, brash and vulnerable at once. And oh! the perfume.

I’ve taken the peonies home now, placed them in a vase, and I’m beginning to draw them. As I make my first marks on the page I’m thinking about the differences between visual and written forms of expression, between a word and a line.

I think the essential difference is between the immediacy, almost fleetingness, of visual observation and the much more prolonged and drawn out evocation of memory offered by words. Perhaps it all comes down to their relationships to time.

When I draw the flowers- my hand and eye and the blossoms  and stems and scent all become one. I need to inhabit the same time and space as the flowers themselves- to feel their exact weight, form, colour.  A drawing is a map, made in time, of what I experienced in looking at the peonies. And if I have been honest and true in my observations (even in an abstract drawing) you will be able to retrace your own way through my map. An exact map is not good. You need to be able to take your own directions, twists and turns along the way.

If I chose to write about the peonies I could take you on a travel through time and memories. I could tell you that I have a red peony in my garden that comes from a root that my great grandparents brought from Ireland during their flight from the potato famines. I could use words to construct a story around their hunger, upheaval, painful voyage, surprising arrival in a new land.

But I will leave you with my drawing of the peonies and let you fill the drawing with your own stories and memories.