Melanie Cossey

Painter-Writer-Editor

The Pointer Sisters

These Hollyhocks are from my garden, grown from seeds given to us by a 40 year family friend. This year they grew extremely high- 9.6ft to be exact. My first outting in Plein air and I learned a lot. First, don't start a such a large canvas. This was 16X20 and it took me three days to finish it. On the third day very strong gusts of winds came up and began to blow the hollyhocks hither and yon. Being so tall, they were bending over at 45 degree angles. Some of them started to break at the base, luckily it wasn't the ones I was painting. Still I got my son to come over and hold them in position while I took a photo and did the last 20 minutes of work back in my studio.

I named the painting "The Pointer Sisters" because back in Victorian times these flowers were planted around the outhouse pointing the way to the privy. Because of their height they could be seen from anywhere in the garden thus relieving modest Victorian women of the embarassment of having to ask the hostess where the 'little girl's room" was.