I can see how this piece might elicit calm, even spiritual reactions among people. I hope that it does. bu-u-u-t... this is what I wrote when I painted it...

I was seeing a lovely young professional woman and I wanted to paint her. She wanted to have a painting of Cherry blossoms.
Initially, I was against the idea. Then she took off her top.

No that’s not what happened. Well, close. Fuck I can’t remember. Initially, I wanted to put in a monk. I said that it was more Zen. I still think so, really.
“Or,” I said – “how about a DUCK? There are ducks around cherry trees, I’ve seen them. Meditating.”I don’t tend to do still life paintings, not really giving a fuck about a bunch of fruit. Unless I am hungry. Or flowers. Unless I am horny.
No that’s not a fetish, it just came out badly.
I do like getting flowers from people. I give flowers to people. Often. Women, mostly. Well yes exclusively.
I didn’t really know what cherry blossoms looked like, even though I had watched Monkey, which did feature cherry blossoms. I watched it so avidly that I can still recite the voice over from the opening credits:“In the world before Monkey, primal chaos reigned. Heaven sought order, but the phoenix can fly only when its feathers are grown…”And so on.

I found pictures on the web and painted some of them, as I didn’t have any actual blossoms handy – and though I did love the tv show “Monkey,” I spent most of the time watching it confused by erotic feelings for one of the main characters who was supposed to be a boy (the actor was a girl.)
I had four goes at it, and these are the second and third. The fourth I sold to her and the first I was not happy with.
I found them recently and thought they were actually quite pleasing. Here they are. No ducks or monks sorry.