Exhale-Chapter 11

Chapter 11 —Exhale- The Healing Garden Collection

Every collection needs a moment of stillness.

A place where everything opens up and gets bigger and there is room to breathe again. The shoulders drop. The jaw unclenches. The breath you have been holding — since this morning, since last week, since the hardest year of your life — finally, quietly, completely releases.

For The Healing Garden, that place is here.

This is the only landscape in the collection. Every other painting is close and intimate — individual flowers, faces turned toward you, the garden right there within reach. But this one pulls back. Way back. Into a whole world of water and sky and willow branches and the kind of deep green stillness that makes everything inside you slow down.

Painting Exhale felt like a relief. In fact,everytime I think about this painting I have a sigh of relief.

After the emotional weight of everything that came before — the struggle, the in between, the acceptance, the gentleness — I painted water and willows and spring green. That color we can’t wait to see. You know the one. That particular shade green that arrives every year like a kept promise and makes everything inside you say — yes. Serenely beautiful and peaceful and vibrant all at once. So many feelings for one color. And every single one of them good. 🌿

Willow branches frame the scene like gentle arms — telling you it is safe to stay, safe to rest, safe to let go. A luminous still pond stretches into the distance, its deep teal water holding the reflection of sky and trees like treasures buried beneath the surface — jeweled, luminous, full of quiet depth. Lily pads drift without hurry. Tall cattails stand at the water's edge like quiet sentinels. Bold blue irises bloom with confidence on the left while soft pink hyacinths and magenta blooms crowd the right bank in joyful abundance. Tiny yellow water flowers dot the shallows. And at the water's edge — lotus flowers. Rising from the mud. Opening toward the light.

Those trees gave me a run for my money. I reworked them so many times. Too rigid. Too planned. Not interesting enough. But I kept going — because I could feel that they needed to be. And finally they arrived, organic and alive. It seems the things that fight us hardest always end up being the most alive. Because the struggle is IN them.

And that little jeweled pond. There is so much depth in there, ,luminous and full of quiet wonder, and so many possibilities.

Above it all — blue sky.

Wide, generous, luminous blue sky.

If you just have some blue sky you can cope with the clouds and the gray days. Blue sky is a clearing. A sign that better times are ahead. And here it is — present and real and completely, beautifully here.

Like the lotus that blooms in mud. Beauty can rise from the hardest places,

That is The Healing Garden 💜

I was inspired by Monet's Flower Garden — not one of his most famous works, but one that stopped me completely. That quiet, abundant, luminous quality of a garden reflected in still water. I brought it here, into my own colors, my own irises and hyacinths and willows, my own particular quality of light on living water.

Exhale. 💜

You have earned this moment. Stay as long as you need. 🌿

The garden is open. You are welcome here. 💜

Exhale is available as an Original Painting, museum-quality Fine Art Giclee Paper Print,

Canvas Giclee Prints, Fine Art Card/Mini Prints on archival paper, and Gifts

Explore the full Healing Garden Collection →

Ms. Laura Jones Paints | Creatively Beautiful