Florence’s route back home was not immediate, however, or even planned. After graduation, the Florences decided they wanted to live overseas and so they applied for a number of grants and fellowships. But realizing their hopes for a subsidized trip might be a long shot, and not wanting to be stuck in Philadelphia, they came up with what Florence describes as “Plan D” -- scrape together as much money as possible, travel to places where they knew someone who could help them find a place to live, and just go. Which they did, first to Ireland for seven months, then to Scandinavia and eventually to Italy.

When their travels were over, however, they were still left with the problem of deciding where to live. Both natives of the West and tired of the humidity on the East coast, they decided they needed someplace closer to home. “We figured Denver or West, but I didn’t ever think of coming back to Utah,” Florence recounts. Heading away from the humidity, the couple was driving through Utah in mid-spring, the mountains were a bright green and Marian said, “Don’t ever tell anybody this, but it’s really nice here.” “That’s the first time I considered moving here,” says Florence.

Florence seems happy in Utah, a place where he can pursue his art with integrity and without distraction. Of his choice to come to Utah, “It’s different to make it MY city, rather than your parents’ or the place you went to High School.”

Florence currently teaches art at the Waterford School and even this employment was more of a Plan D than a Plan A. He says he “stumbled into it.” After making what he describes as an “annual habit” of turning down a position at the school, Florence took a short time (3 month) position to fill in for a teacher on maternity leave. After the initial period he was offered a full time position, but he was still hesitant, undecided between what he liked and disliked about teaching. His mother, a professional teacher, worked with him on some things -- changes in the curriculum, time management, classroom skills -- and he eventually found that it was sort of fun. Plus, he says the school provides him with a huge studio where, when the kids aren’t around, he closes the door, cranks up the stereo and gets to work.

Some of this work was on display at David Ericson Fine Art in December. The show, “Stories of Flight,” was dominated by mid-size and large-size paintings with metaphorical content, many of which dealt with the theme of flight.|1| In addition, a number of small to very small landscapes were included. In general, Florence describes the landscapes as studies, a means to keep his eye sharp and his technique spontaneous. He sees them as methods of learning problem solving, elements of which will enter into his larger studio paintings. These larger paintings, the focus of his work, are the figurative, symbolist work, which he realizes can be more difficult for local audiences to appreciate.

Utah audiences are well known for their affinity for the landscape. Scholars have even made the case for a regional school of art based on the landscape. Ericson, in discussing Florence’s work and the exhibition, comments on the difficulties in presenting his patrons with new experiences. “Why people like landscapes so much is we have a shared experience and so as a viewer we can see it on multiple levels which is why its so much easier for us to view regional paintings.” But with work like Florence’s he says, “You have to get people’s minds oriented towards looking for the metaphor. Otherwise they look at it and say ‘That’s a girl with her arms stretched out [referring to Florence’s painting ‘Wingspan’].|2| Why would someone like that?’”

“The scary thing,” Ericson says, “that happens all the time is someone comes in and they stand in front of a painting and they feel something and they hurry and run away. They don’t want to feel something.”

Florence realizes that his work may be difficult for some people to approach, but he is confident that he will find an audience. He says he has many good responses already.

He is happy for the interaction, for the conversations he has with people when they do not go running away. He enjoys hearing people’s takes on his paintings, and is happy to share with them where he’s coming from in the work, though he admits he doesn’t always have an answer for them as to where he’s going. “I think of my paintings as little chunks of a story where I’m interested in it, there are references in it, but I’m not always sure what the answers are.”

He enjoys working in a method that allows “an element of unpredictability” -- a Plan D, if you will-- if that is where the painting is going to go. He speaks of this in reference to “Flora,” a painting in which a young couple is kissing, an amusement park in the background.|3| The young man comes into the painting directly from the left, as if in midair. Florence says he wasn’t really sure what the figure was or meant but he liked the formal element. But then through the process of developing the painting he realized that it referenced a work by John William Waterhouse titled “Flora and the Zephyrs.” Waterhouse may be a good road mark for entering Florence’s work, which shares a lot in common with the late nineteenth-century Symbolists. Florence’s paintings, though, are grittier and generally eschew the literary world of myth and legend found in the Symbolists, preferring figures in contemporary settings and clothes.