Tree of Life

This piece has heavy texture in places. This texture comes from building up heavy layers of paint, which provides a rich history for the piece, not all of which is always visible. The piece is finished with a coat of satin varnish, which helps protect the painting over time. The painting has a satin finish. This piece is mounted on wood panel, with the sides painted white. It comes wired for hanging. A certificate of authenticity is adhered to the back of the piece using archival-quality adhesive.

This intuitive piece seems to be a follow up to a previous piece that I titled “Welcome Home”, which showed a mostly empty landscape with a round tree paired with a seemingly out-of-place glowing white doorframe. I say “seems to be” because these intuitive pieces paint themselves. I provide the eyes, hands, and art supplies, but my best work seems to come when I set myself aside and let whatever it is that is painting through me do its job. I think the “happy accidents” that artists talk about happen when the artist gets out of the way and lets the art flow THROUGH them. It may sound like I’m speaking metaphorically here, but I’m actually quite serious. I think that all art flows into us from somewhere outside of ourselves -- the subconscious, the collective unconscious, the “ether” -- the best art happens when we just let it flow, adding our personal touches for sure, but not tainting or resisting what’s flowing through us. Our right brain is the center of our creativity. I believe it’s a kind of antenna that, when tuned and pointed properly, can draw in a healthy flow of artistic energy. Our left brain is the center of speech, reason, and analysis. It likes to act as a kind of traffic cop, and it will run our brains and our lives if we let it. The left brain looks at the art we’re creating and says things like “that doesn’t look good”, “no one is going to like that”, “you think you’re an artist?!?” It will attempt to “perfectionize” what we create, and in the process of doing so, it will suck out of all of the life, joy, passion, humor, sexiness, and flavor, leaving a “perfect” dry shell. And the right brain can’t say anything about this, because the left brain owns the speech center. So the right brain can become a captive in our heads if we don’t watch out. Look up “You Are Two” on YouTube to see a really fascinating discussion of this! This started out as a series of patchy blocks of color, using a limited palette of phthalo green (my favorite), yellow ochre, Paynes’ gray, and white. Over time the patches started merging together into a less distinct background. The colors dovetailed nicely due to the limited palette. Then I began adding a series of blocky shapes at the far bottom, building up into a kind of pyramid shape. (Remember that I have literally no idea of what any of this is as I go, it reveals itself to me.) I thought those were going to be buildings, then a large tree sprouted on top of them, reaching up far above the blocky shapes, which turned themselves into a knoll that supported what was rapidly turning into a tree. At this point I started introducing some red oxide into the palette, another muted color that I just love. It was quickly turning into a tree on a hill. Then a sun/moon figure appeared. At first it was red, then it began to back off into a more yellowish color. A doorway appeared in the distance, at which point I realized that I was back where I went in the “Welcome Back” piece. I then began to rub a yellow glaze across the sky areas. The negative painting approach I used almost makes it look like waves of energy are pulsing from this tree, which is a powerful and unintended effect. (Well it was unintended by me, but I’m sure the muse knew exactly what she was doing there.) I finished by adding grass using a silicone basting brush. That thing makes the nicest looking grass. In retrospect I made all that grass stand up too regularly, I should’ve had some of it more to the left or right. Oh well, next time. What does this piece look like to you? To me, this is the tree of life. The doorway represents a portal from this life and world to another life and world. That transition may be death, or even something else entirely. I like how some themes come through again and again, it’s like they want to be expressed and seen in different ways.