In this cold winter season, with spring quite far off still, I thought you might enjoy the following inspiring quotes from nine women artists:

“I have gone into roses and have over a thousand planted.  There is nothing like making pictures with real things.”– Mary Cassatt

“Just as I begin to mourn the passing of the azaleas, out comes the mountain laurel.  It is so breathtaking, so short-lived, that the enjoyment of it is almost pain.”– Margaret Bourke-White

“To tell the truth, I could work with one flower forever.”– Nell Blaine

“It seemed to me as though the flower I was painting was the only thing in the world.  And when the bloom came out, I felt as though a skyscraper had gone up overnight.”– Georgia O’Keeffe

“With almost every breath I take I get a new sense of the linden tree, of ripened wheat, of hay, of mignonette.  If I can paint three good pictures then I shall go gladly, with flowers in my hair.”– Paula Modersohn-Becker

“See how the trees detach themselves from the sky in a vigorous green?  Yet they are wrapped in a bluish tone–the air circulating between their branches.”– Rosa Bonheur

“I set my brain back and managed to remember flowers–and paint them–as I had seen them years ago.  The flowers were fresher than ever.”– Alice Neel

“My first awesome experience with the natural world was this: I would call my mother to the window of our New York apartment and beg her to watch the sunset with me.”– Helen Frankenthaler

“I would like to become so agile as a painter that nothing could escape me, neither the weight of stones nor the buoyancy of birds.”– Maria da Silva

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