Penelope Rolland X Lotuswei
This month Penelope Rolland was interviewed by Katie Hess of the lifestyle brand, Lotuswei about her day to day, work process, and love of all thing flowers.
See the full interview on Lotuswei here.
A few months ago we received an email from a very special wild creative … one that we instantly added to our #wins channel on Slack so the entire team could read the story. The message was from Penelope Rolland, a flower-loving painter living in Paris, France. She shared with us her recent experience with our Peony Flower Elixir, along with several photos of herself standing in front of her recently finished wall mural … of a PEONY! Amazing, right? Well, here’s the cherry on top: she also infused the entire piece with Peony flower essence by adding it into her paints + onto the wall during different phases of the work!
Continually awestruck + inspired by her magic, I couldn’t be more excited to share Penelope’s gifts with you! Keep reading for our interview with her below…
WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE FLOWER + 3 WORDS TO DESCRIBE ITS PERSONALITY?
All flowers are my favorite flowers! Peony, however, is the one that stands out for me right now, serving as a guide and teacher flower. Its presence helps bring to my awareness the qualities of UNCONDITIONAL LOVE, ABUNDANCE + GENEROSITY.
HOW DOES NATURE INFLUENCE YOUR WORK?
To me nature is an ongoing source of guidance and inspiration. When we take the time to attune to its messages, nature shows us what we have been hiding from ourselves. It lovingly mirrors the infinity, the beauty, the love and the intelligence that we are. When we connect with the deep essence of nature, we allow our consciousness to access new levels of understanding and being, and open to seeing the ways nature supports every step of our growth. I consider my work both a co-creation with nature and a tribute to nature.
WHY ARE YOU DOING WHAT YOU’RE DOING? WHAT’S THE MAIN MESSAGE YOU WANT PEOPLE TO GET FROM YOUR WORK IN THE WORLD?
I believe each and every one of us has unique gifts and talents to express and to share. At a deeper level, I also believe we’ve all come to learn how to BE more love, kindness and compassion through our earth experience. Through my work with flowers, my wish is to inspire people to fall in love with life again.
I integrate flower elixirs and Reiki in my murals to create a vibrational harmonizing art work that gives people the opportunity to align with their true radiance. By incorporating energy work in my mural art, my desire is to create new ways of raising our frequencies to more harmonious levels. My murals allow the possibility of coming into resonance with the energies with which they are infused.
HOW HAVE YOU TAKEN HEALTH + HAPPINESS INTO YOUR OWN HANDS?
Thanks to the work I have done with my dear friend and mentor Jay Rai, a truly inspiring Self-Empowerment Therapist and Founder of www.mind-worthy.com, I have learned to speak my truth, to monitor my thoughts and feelings, and to watch any inner dialogue that does not serve the highest aspects of myself. It’s taken a lot of practice and I am still working at it, but at the end of my day, I can now take full responsibility for how much happiness I allow into my life.
Flower essences are wonderful allies in this process, helping me to see what I am not seeing, and allowing me to gently release entrenched negative beliefs I have created about myself. For my family and daily needs, I refer to homeopathy, vibrational medicine, and Reiki. I also have a growing interest in learning about Biofield Tuning, a sound wave modality elaborated by Eileen McKusick.
HOW DOES YOUR WORK RELATE TO MINDFUL AWARENESS? WHAT RITUALS OR EXQUISITE PRACTICES DO YOU DO THAT TRIGGER MORE AWARENESS IN YOU?
Drawing is a delicious mindful practice. When drawing becomes a meditative practice, anyone can learn to draw with ease! It’s all about leaving our verbal mode aside and entering the present moment, which is very simple to access via line drawing. Many years ago, a teacher told me “If you want to draw a flower you must become the flower”. Ever since I create the intention to merge with the flower I am drawing, I observe it from within, and from that inner bonding space, I find that more of myself is revealed to me. It’s a wonderful feeling.
I also have a daily meditation/reading/journaling ritual that encourages me to develop awareness and helps me create more clarity and focus.
HOW HAS CURIOSITY, DISCOVERY + MAGIC PLAYED A ROLE IN YOUR LIFE’S WORK?
Curiosity and adventure definitely fuel my creativity and my feeling of being alive. Magic, I believe occurs when we accept to move beyond our fears and learn to trust our intuition when we make the decision to genuinely be available to live and fully embrace the infinite possibilities that we are. The more we decide to live fearlessly, the more we open to the magic that awaits us in each moment. That as well takes practice, but this is why we are here.
WHAT INSPIRED YOU TO *GO BIG* AND PAINT WALL MURALS?
I started painting big flower murals in 2005 because I longed for the voice of flowers to be heard. I felt it was important that flowers be seen for the consciousness that they are, and not only for the beauty they represent. Recently I was ready to move to another level of collaboration with flowers and am now incorporating their vibrational imprint in my work for an increased sense of well-being. Humanity needs the consciousness of flowers more than ever right now. We need to realize the harmonizing beauty, the wisdom, and generosity that they offer us as a gift. Within this new level of awareness, flowers are no longer just decorative elements or patterns, they are conscious energies of love and delight, with which we can learn to play and interact with.
WHAT EFFECTS DO YOU SEE YOUR FLOWER-ELIXIR INFUSED MURALS HAVING ON PEOPLE WHEN THEY WALK INTO THE SPACE?
I’ve seen spectacular results with children who enter the space with a natural attunement to joy. With adults, the first impact seems to be a visual one. Then, people quickly relax and abandon themselves to a sense of inner peace, a sense of just feeling good and not knowing why.
When living with a mural on a daily basis, a relationship is created. Something happens within the space itself. When a dialogue is established, when we are able to click to the frequency, there is a growing sense of security, of being cared for and loved unconditionally.
WHO CAN BENEFIT FROM YOUR FLOWER INFUSED MURALS?
My artwork is intended for anyone who wants to integrate the vitalizing and harmonizing effects of flowers in their home, and/or workplace environments. They can also have a great impact and be beneficial for hotels, spas, yoga studios, community centers, meditation retreat centers, waiting rooms, hospitals, city halls, libraries, schools, airports … anywhere the healing presence of flowers is needed!
WE NOTICED YOU HAVE AN AFFINITY FOR THE DESERT {WE’RE BASED IN PHOENIX, ARIZONA, SO THIS INTRIGUES US!}. WHAT SECRET TEACHINGS FROM MOTHER EARTH DO YOU FEEL THE DESERT HAS TO OFFER?
The intelligence of the desert fascinates me. In its vastness, we hear the song of the universe, in its spaciousness, I’ve experienced fullness like nowhere else. I was blessed with a childhood traveling and living around the world, and spent my last year of high school in Phoenix which was a very rich experience for me. I felt a strong familiarity with the desert in bloom. In the desert, I find that all secrets are revealed, Mother Earth is raw and pure, not withholding just giving. The desert allows us to see beyond our senses what is real, and what is real is Love.
YOU’VE SAID: “FLOWERS GIVE US THE OPPORTUNITY TO SEE THAT LIFE IS A LOVE POEM, AND INVITE US TO BE THAT POEM.” WE, OF COURSE, LOVE THIS! IS THERE A POEM YOU’D LIKE TO SHARE?
This is a poem by Ganga White, from Yoga Beyond Belief.
What if…
What if our religion was each other
If our practice was our life
If prayer, our words
What if the temple was the earth
If forests were our church
If holy water-the rivers, lakes, and oceans
What if meditation was our relationships
If the Teacher was life
If wisdom was self-knowledge
If love was the center of our being.
WHAT ROLE DOES COLOR PLAY IN YOUR WORK?
In addition to my work as an artist, I teach color design courses in Art and Design and Visual Communication schools to enable students to awaken to color. Color is a frequency, that is, a vibration which carries information and intention. I think a lot of people remain very unaware of the power and impact that color has in our daily lives. When we learn to work with the subtle language that is color, a whole new energetic vocabulary is available to us! In my artwork, I intentionally use the vibrational aspects of color to generate the highest frequencies of joy, aliveness, compassion, love, peace, and well-being.
WHAT ARE YOUR NEXT PROJECTS GOING TO LOOK LIKE?
I’m currently working on experimenting the effects of a flower meditation/inspiration room, a full immersion of flower consciousness in one room (3 or 4 flower infused mural paintings) and am actually looking for a space to do that. I am interested in testing the healing and harmonizing qualities of the space and look forward to finding ways to measuring the frequencies of the room before and after painting with flower essences and incorporating energy work.
