Dear Rose Tellers,
Help me answer just one question today:
What do people see in roses?
Are the symbolic references we’ve been exploring in past posts still alive today—consciously or not—embraced by celebrities and everyday people alike?
You might think my personal obsession with roses is something I’ve carried with me forever. That I was always destined to write a blog about rose symbolism.
Well… not quite.
When I was a cynical teenager, I used to tag along with my mom while she taught painting lessons to groups of bored-looking women of various ages. These were women who had woken up one day and decided they wanted to become amateur artists.
Yes—my mom teaches decorative painting to people enjoying their “I-want-to-be-an-artist” me-time. A beautiful concept, really.
But back then? I didn’t see it that way.
And though “despise” is too strong a word, I definitely made fun of them. Especially one thing I just couldn’t wrap my teenage brain around: Why on earth did they all want to paint only two things—Roses and cats?
Roses, roses, roses. Cats, cats, cats.
What was wrong with women of that age??
Then one day, in high school, I was bored and sleepy. I picked up a pen and started doodling in my agenda—little soft, concentric shapes with two or three pointy “leaves” springing from the sides.
Oh no…
They were roses. There was no mistaking it.
The most disturbing thing—well, disturbing now, but flattering back then—was that my friend sitting next to me was so in love with my little roses that she asked me to draw them in her diary too.
Sketched Roses by M. S., aka the author of this Blog 😉
Fast forward to today: I’m 32, and the only “art attacks” I’ve ever delivered—be it for family gifts, decoupage, or patchwork—are decorated with those same wavy little roses.
Without even noticing, I had become just like the ladies at my mom’s classes: a sort of wannabe artist who can only draw roses.
(At least, no cats have entered my dreams, my drawings, or my life so far.)
You might think I’m digressing from the original question—but here’s the point:
Roses enter people’s lives so naturally that we don’t even notice.
Their shape is simple, almost instinctive—a soft circle.
If you just follow the flow of a spiral and add three leaves to clarify the form, you’ve got a rose.
It’s that natural. That embedded.
And beyond their form, roses live in our symbolic imagination:
The pink rose of tenderness.
The white rose of purity.
The red rose of passion.
The blue rose of impossible perfection.
They’re always there—tucked into our culture, art, and gestures.
To show you what I mean, I’ve created a gallery below featuring a few modern rose tellers:
Nicole Kidman, Julia Roberts, Blake Lively, etc.—wearing roses, obviously.
Can you see the symbolism in their choices?
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Telling Roses 
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