This piece began with a memory. For years the roses in the garden came up pale, soft, expected. Then one season a single crimson bloom appeared with no explanation, and I have never forgotten the small shock of it. That is what I wanted to paint. Not the rose exactly, but the feeling of being surprised by something ordinary.

I built it on a hand-carved double panel because the subject needed room to open. The gold leaf and iridescent details came in slowly, layer by layer, so the surface shifts as you move around it. The jasmine is painted as if seen by moonlight, and the hummingbird sits in there like a small jewel, a witness to the moment.

It rests on an antique cast iron easel, which felt right for a piece about things appearing where you least expect them. Something old holding something new. The whole work is really about possibility. The bloom that has not happened yet, but could.