The Flower Man

I spent a few hours at Powell's Bookstore today, in the coffee shop, shooting Arnold World, "The Flower Man" I met a few days ago. We're going to meet again on Monday, for more collaboration. He's a delightful, gentle-spirited man. It is joy to watch his large hands engaged in tiny, specific, and highly trained movements. He prides himself on using nothing but his hands. No scissors, no glue, no wire. Just paper napkins: folded, twisted, bent, torn, and rolled. Flowers flow from his fingers.

It was difficult to pick which shot to blip. I decided on this one of his face, with the hands and the flower a kind of blur in the foreground, because there is something so kind, so focused, so one-of-a-kind about this man-- it's larger than the flowers, larger than the skill. It's his whole way of being in the world: in a coffee shop. Making flowers and giving them away. Chatting softly as he works.  He does it for the company. For the joy of doing it. For his own delight and the delight of those watching. Because he can.