The second move, this one artistic but no less momentous, was that Casteel, 35, began painting pictures ... (“You know, pretty girls, flowers, you can’t be serious,” the 96-year-old painter ...

The title may be archaic. The painting is anything but. The papery sheaths from which her iris flowers emerge are so tactile, I reached out to feel them. Luckily I stopped before the uniformed ...

The symbol of the flower is traditionally assumed to be soft and pretty and beautiful—and can be a stand-in for these outdated virtues of womanhood. Typically in painting, you see flowers ...