Calla Lily II - from the Calla Series / Sonoma County, CA

Aryan Chappell

"Calla Lily II" is a pigment print, printed digitally using archival inks, printed in 2005 from a negative taken in 1985 in Sonoma County, California.

White calla lily flowers' sensuous lines have inspired painters for centuries and photographers for decades. The flowers are commonly used in Easter services and have come to represent resurrection and rebirth. An image of a broken calla lily flower indicates someone who died before their time.

Gardener Julie Martens Forney comments about the history of the calla:

"One early calla lily meaning originates in ancient Greek culture, where the flower was thought to represent magnificent beauty. This origin stems from a tale regarding Hercules as a baby. His father, the Greek god Zeus, had conceived him with an earthly woman, which meant he would lack divine, supernatural powers. Zeus drugged his goddess wife Hera to trick her into nursing the baby Hercules (to give him divine powers).

As the drug wore off, she came to her senses and flung the nursing baby from her. As she did so, some drops of her breast milk dropped to earth and sprouted to form calla lilies. The lilies were endued with god-like beauty, which made the goddess Venus jealous, so she cursed the blossom, resulting in the formation of the central spike inside the cupped bloom.

The spike inside the calla lily flower is actually the true flower; the outer petal part is a type of leaf. The ancient Egyptians and Romans recognized the phallic nature of the inner spike. The Egyptian culture adopted a calla lily meaning of fertility, while the Romans focused on a calla lily meaning of sexuality."