Why Trees?

Baby Leaves

It goes back to my childhood.

I've been working on a new series and it never seems like the right time to talk about it. 

So much is going on in the world. There are pressing issues, and my inquiry about trees doesn't have the importance or presence to be vigorously promoted. 

But here, my friends, is a little introduction. 

I am squireling away at paintings in the barn. 

They are drawings and panel paintings that celebrate trees as companions.

All winter, on my daily walks, I came to appreciate some sentinels in the forest and hedges. These majestic, broken trees held stories. They resonated inside me. I crawled over and under maple lines in the spring. During the silence of the NY Covid isolation mandate, the trees inspired me with both their stillness and their moving. Just as they started leafing up, 

I got a large board of birch ply and cut 92 oval panels in order to dissect and discover what is behind the power and fascination of what some would call "nature bathing".

Baby Leaves is inspired by one of my earliest memories. I was about 4 years old and living in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. On my walks to and from pre-school we must have crossed through a jungle because there was a carpet under my feet of diversely shaped and colored leaves that were so beautiful I often froze. I had to be practically dragged by my Amah across them. I still recall the vision, the variety, the richness, the smell and the beauty. It was heaven, and still is for me. 

I would not mind if that same vision was my last memory.