I delivered flowers this week for Valentine’s Day. My friend needed help and I needed (still need!) employment and/or money. It felt nice setting an alarm, picking out an outfit, and packing a lunch. No machine to punch in, I started the clock in my head when I got to work.

Between deliveries, I swept the floors of cuttings and processed incoming bunches of flowers: removing thorns and excess foliage and sorting by type and color. I enjoyed the dirt on my hands and cursed the cuts. I felt I was setting the designers up for success. A feeling that proved to be true as each finished arrangement was beautiful and unique, producing its own mood and feeling. I wondered why and thought about color, shape and space. I thought about Henri Matisse.

I was caught off guard the first time I saw his work, Flowers, 1907. Previously, I had seen flora painted with intricate and elaborate detail, but I remember Matisse’s work for the opposite, for its loose (even lack of) detail. Towards the end of his career, he created artworks using pieces of painted paper and a large pair of scissors. Often from the comfort of his bed! But back to this particular piece: Matisse’s brushstrokes are thumpy and dashy and assemble together on the canvas to create a lovely, balanced bouquet, a feeling of spring, a taste of healthy candy, if such a thing existed.

I love this painting because it looks like something that could be recreated by a non-painter. One simply needs an idea and the right application of colors and use of shape and space to achieve a similar result. Believe me, it’s possible. Back when I had a job, there was a fun, standout, egalitarian segment producer who displayed a tiny painting of flowers in his office. I complimented it one day and he responded happily, “Isn’t it great?! I found it at a thrift shop for ten bucks!” We shared the same opinion. The painting exhibited superb use of color, shape and space.

Back at the shop, the florists were successful in their designs because they considered the same. Other than seeing Dads buying flowers for their daughters, the highlight of my day was witnessing the change in the recipient’s face when the door opened enough to reveal the flowers being delivered. Art, flowers, or artwork of flowers has this effect. I enjoyed having a job for a day and I’m lucky to have art all the others. —Phillip Dillon

HERE are some quotes of henri’s that made me think or smile:

“There are always flowers for those who want to see them.”

“Don't wait for inspiration. It comes while you're working.”

“Don't try to be original. Be simple. Be good technically, and if there is something in you, it will come out.”

“Another word for creativity is courage.”

“Nothing can be accomplished without love.”

“Seeing is in itself a creative act which requires effort.”

“Color was not given to us in order that we should imitate nature. It was given to us so that we can express our emotions.”

“I've been forty years discovering that the queen of all colors is black.”

“Everything that we see in our daily lives is more or less distorted by acquired habits and this is perhaps more evident in an age like ours when cinema posters and magazines present us every day with a flood of ready-made images which are to the eye what prejudices are to the mind. The effort to see things without distortion demands a kind of courage; and this courage is essential to the artist, who has to look at everything as though he were seeing it for the first time.”

“You can't help getting old, but you can help becoming old.”

“Would not it be best to leave room to mystery?”