Spirits of the Trees
I first created about 40 of these paintings in the late 1990s. I exhibited them at Alper’s Fine Art, in Andover, MA in 2001. It was a very popular series. I sold most of them, and also did a few commissions. It wasn’t until I came to Mexico, almost 20 years later, that I got the urge to explore this idea again.
I started hunting for weathered, interesting pieces of wood (often the most difficult part of the process) on a friend’s beautiful, unspoiled property, consisting of a wide valley surrounded by stunning mountains. The land is aptly named, El Milagro, The Miracle.
We found a great cache of wood on the mountain where, during the torrential rainy season, the water had washed the driftwood into a now dry stream bed. I have also found some good pieces at El Charco, the botanical garden in San Miguel de Allende.
This beautiful natural habitat is on a premier tract of land that some very generous and prescient angel neighbors bought years ago, and gave as a gift to the city. I consider it to be one of the greatest treasures the city has.
The initial inspiration for these paintings has remained the same. Whenever I’ve seen an old, impressive tree, I have felt the presence of a living entity and will stand quietly admiring its beauty and life force.
I mix my paint the subtle colors of the wood that I find, so that the face I paint looks like the spirit inhabiting and emanating from within the piece of wood.
I realized that these paintings also reflect a different cycle of the tree’s life, that of weathering and slowly decaying and turning back into earth, becoming a memorial, in a way, to that particular tree and its spirit.
