Lavender

Somewhere between a Colorado meadow and a library shelf, this painting exists. Laurie grew up in the Rocky Mountains knowing lavender the way you know a neighbor — by sight and scent before you ever learn the name. When she returned to that plant in her studio, she didn't place it in a vase or a garden. She placed it in a life. Beneath the tall, swaying spires she layered the things that accumulate across a human story: an old map with its roads going somewhere, a page of sheet music mid-phrase, a postage stamp that traveled to get here, words worth remembering. The reversed quotation at the top — 'Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it' — feels less like decoration and more like a message found inside a book left by someone who knew you'd need it. This is what Laurie means when she calls her work a treasure hunt. The lavender is the invitation. The layers are the reward. There is joy in this piece, and there is also quiet courage — the courage of a woman who spent thirty years in service to other people's futures before finally tending her own. The plants stand tall. The music plays on. Begin it.