The Century Garden, completed in August, 2006. A private commission. Acrylic on canvas. 20 x 24"

This is inspired by a magnificent and uncommonly huge 'Century Plant' (Also called American aloe . • Agave americana) growing in a long forgotten meadow above my home.

Though I am still in Los Angeles county, and can see the buildings of downtown LA, there are still tiny areas of almost pristine and primordial loveliness. Little pockets that time has forgotten. While the teeming city has gone up around these areas, no building has been built upon them. Animals from tiny rodents to Coyote, birds, insects, huge orb weaving spiders and several reptile species manage to hang on in these forgotten places. Giant trees, and giant plants are left to their own devices to grow or die a natural death.

I live in such a place. And so does this gigantic plant. The leaves are 12 feet long and 2 feet thick with long needle like spines running down their sides. It's so unusual that it appears to be not of this world. They call these plants 'Century Plants' I am told, because they live up to 100 years and then flower and die. I have seen many others. Never of this size. And I have seen them flower and die and spread their progeny upon the ground beside their corpses. They are very slow to grow. Thus I judge that this particular plant may indeed be close to 100 years old.

I had hiked up above my land and shown this unusual plant to a collector of my work. He asked me to paint a version of it for him. And thus this rendition of the plant has been created for him. (and me)

One interesting thing is this; From the beginning of the painting, I painted the plant flowering. However, the behemoth plant on the hill it depicts was not flowering. Towards the end of the painting I again hiked up to it's secluded spot and to my surprise, it was beginning to flower. Within weeks it shot a flower spike (resembling a huge asparagus spear) 50 feet into the air. When it opened it flowered and attracted swarms of insects and humming birds to drink it's copious nectar. Within a few months, and also coinciding with the final touches of my painting, it lay withered and dying. Around it, hundreds of tiny Century plants, it's children.

If one of these is allowed to grow for another hundred years, it will see the twenty second century. That plant was an amazing thing to witness. ~ RS