a rose is a rose is a rose

Vintage Rose

© Sybille Sterk
Do not copy or publish this in any way, shape or form without my written permission.

Stages of Deconstruction

© Sybille Sterk
Do not copy or publish this in any way, shape or form without my written permission.

More experiments with flowers at various stages of dying. I like the faded beauty as much as I like them when they're all fresh and plump. I added textures and colour adjustments in Photoshop. The pictures were taken of the flowers lying flat on a bit of cream cardboard. I only used natural light.

All images/textures/brushes my own or bought. Edited with Photoshop.

All my images are available on Redbubble, Artflakes, Society6 and Bluecanvas as prints, cards, posters, skins for laptops, Blackberry, iPhones and other phones (for the skins go to Bluecanvas). You can now also get most of my images on cushion covers (go to Society6 for these).

Perdu - Painting

This is my latest (finished) painting.

Perdu - forgotten, out of sight, French

The painting is about aging and lost beauty (not just physical beauty), which only continues to exist in our memories and thoughts.

It has been inspired by the three fates from Norse mythology: Wyrd, Skuld and Verdandi. Their Roman equivalents are the Parcea: Nona, Decima and Morta. In Greek mythology they are known as the Moirae: Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos.

All three mythologies agree that one of the three fates would spin the thread, the other would measure it and the last one would cut it, measuring out the fates of mortals and defining their destiny.


The two birds are Odin's ravens, Memory and Thought.


The tree necklace pendant is meant to represent Yggdrasil - the world ash of Norse mythology.


Here is the spindle, a tape measure with a Greek reference (alpha for the beginning of a life and omega for the ending of a life) and the scissors used to cut the thread. The scissors are based on a design from the T'ang dynasty.

Although not that many people still know much about the three fates, I've always been fascinated by them and some authors are too: Stephen King's Insomnia and Robin Jarvis' Wyrd Museum trilogy are just two of them, I am sure there are others.

The image is available as a print on RedBubble.