A New Blog by
the Rev. Frank S. Rose
Rev. Walter E. Orthwein
L
andscape paintings by the Rev. Frank Rose are proudly displayed on the
walls of many New Church homes, churches and schools. Now, having
retired from the pulpit in Tucson, he has found a whole new career as a painter
and photographer of flowers and trees in Arizona. He has also given a number
of lectures on nature in Arizona. “It has really given me a lot of interest and
satisfaction in my retirement,” he says.
Beautiful and interesting examples of Mr. Rose’s artwork may be viewed
by visiting his new blog at: franksrose.com
The artwork is the fruit of careful observation while hiking in the
mountains, canyons and deserts. Botanists in Arizona have found his records
of the local plants to be unique and important scientifically, as well as
artistically, and encouraged him to publish them. On his blog, the photographs
and paintings are accompanied by scientific notes on the vegetation, as well as
personal comments and warm human interest stories of meetings with fellow
hikers and nature lovers.
“When we arrived in Tucson, 31 years ago,” Frank explains, “one of the
things the small congregation did was to think of activities besides Sunday
worship. We came up with a plan for church hikes, which we carried on, more
or less once a week, for more than 20 years” – until many of the participants
were forced to drop out for health reasons.
He explains in the preface to his first book, Mountain Wildflowers of
Southern Arizona, that he originally set out to do watercolor paintings of all the
flower species in the Catalina Mountains – the top of which is Mt. Lemmon,
overlooking the city of Tucson.
“My wife and I have spent many vacations there. We hike in the morning,
and then I do watercolors in the afternoon. One of the challenges of painting
is deciding what to paint next, and that is when I decided to paint flowers.”
Later, Frank was invited to do watercolor paintings of the plants in the
book, Herbal Medicine of the American Southwest, by Charlie Kane. He did
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