Painting flowers....am I woman enough?

Of course, I have to acknowledge a rich history when looking at the painting of flowers.  Beautiful still lives with symbols and morals, talking of the transience of life and the vanity of earthly pleasure.  A wealth of 17th century women artists and botanists.  Then there's botanical drawing.  Helping us to create a natural history and helping to understand the biology of life.

'Let women occupy themselves with those kinds of art they have always preferred...the paintings of flowers, those prodigies of grace and freshness of women themselves"...Leon Lerange 1860.  Well fuck you Mr Lerange.  I will fall into the trap of flower painting with as little grace as I can muster!!

I am interested in flowers from an aesthetic view, obviously, who wouldn't be? But I am also interested from a biological point of view.  It seems that flowers have survived against the odds of us humans.  But I have been watching this..... Maybe they are controlling us.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=the+botany+of+desire+

After all we need plants and flowers for most things.  For food, clothes, sheets, medicine, dyes.

There is a rich history of myth alongside plants and flowers. From the times when we weren't so lucky to have medicine or protection from things that might harm.

I hope to produce work that will give form to my ideas and hope that I can give somebody, something to look at and to be able to see something.