The Ancient Ones is a series of paintings of very old trees that still live among us. The idea grew from my love of trees. Yes, I am a tree nerd-I just can't help myself!
Moving around the country since the 1980s has seriously destroyed my own personal sense of place. Yet, I know I am not alone. Humans migrate; some by choice and others out of necessity.
The trees in this series remind me that some living things, despite climate change, are still with us in virtually the same place they began life thousands of years ago. I love that idea.
Pando is Latin for 'spreading out' and this 'Trembling Giant' has been doing just that for 80,000 years. Pando is a clonal quaking aspen in Utah, USA and the subject of the first in a series of four paintings.
Pando
48" x 60"
Oil on Canvas
Number 3 in the series: The Ancient Ones
Climate change is always on my mind, as it is for many of you. Eco-responsible art-making has been a priority for me for many decades. The Ancient Ones series continues that tradition while focusing upon essential yet vulnerable living things that will probably still be here long after humans are not.
Old T or Old Tjikko, a clonal tree that regenerates trunks, branches, and roots over long periods of time, is almost 10,000 years old. Old Tjikko is deceiving. We can see the 300 hundred year old spruce shooting out of the ground, however, most of Old Tjikko is ancient and underground. Clonal trees are mostly roots underground shooting up those familiar trees we love so much. Old T is a Norway spruce located in Sweden.
Old T
48" x 60"
Oil on Canvas
Methuselah
is a 5000 year old Bristlecone pine tree in the White Mountains in California.
It is the oldest living non-clonal tree in the world. Its actual location is a
secret! What an ancient beauty!
Methuselah
48" x 60"
Oil on Canvas
This piece is my expression of the Comfort Maple in Pelham,
Ontario. The Comfort Maple is just a babe in the woods at only 500 years
old. I chose to paint this sugar maple
in fall because of, well, the color of course!
This was an exciting and interesting experiment in paint! I
used the process to exorcise my own dis-comfort. Whenever I felt angry, sad,
anxious, or generally out of sorts, I would head to the studio and apply color
to Comfort. It truly was a cathartic as well as a ‘comforting’ experience to unleash my pain in this manner. I realize now that many of my expressive
pieces are born of my own personal distress and it is truly comforting to expel
my demons in this manner.
The problem with this kind of expression is it may never
end. Comfort just may sit in my
studio for years as I apply layer after layer of angst in the form of paint as
my way to just let shit go!
Comfort
48" x 60"
Oil on Canvas
% of the profits from the sale of the paintings in this series will go to a non-profit organization working toward reforestation and conservation.
"Buddha's words: A tree is a wonderous thing that shelters, feeds, and protects all living things. It even offers shade to the axmen who destroy it." Richard Powers, The Overstory
