With my initial entry I included a photograph of a tree
stump, which may seem a bit odd or arbitrary.
But, in fact, I selected the image very deliberately.
A couple of years ago, the area where I live was hit with a
freak snowstorm in October. It came so
early that the leaves on deciduous trees were still green and supple and hadn’t
begun to fall, and the snow adhered to the leaves, accumulating in great piles
on every branch. The abnormally heavy
load brought down a great many trees and, with those trees, inevitably, power
lines, causing power outages for about a week.
Crews worked diligently to clear away the fallen trees and get
electricity back to us. Once power had
been restored to all areas, the crews continued to work, identifying and
lopping off weak branches and removing old and diseased trees altogether. For months, the roar of chain saws resounded
through the neighborhood, and, while driving, you would often unexpectedly come
across work crews on the roads.
A nearby state park, which I have frequented for years,
suffered a lot of damage from the storm and some magnificent trees had to be
taken down. After the initial clean-up
was complete, the work continued at the park for months. I would often watch the crews taking down
trees and removing branches and wonder how they were determining what had to
go. I was sort of mystified as seemingly
healthy trees were selected for removal or for pruning so extreme it left the
tree distorted and unattractive. I’m not
a botanist, so I trusted that the experts had identified trees that were
compromised by disease or age. Then,
ever after that first year, the crews have returned annually with the mild
weather to begin the chain sawing. It
now appears that their goal is to clear away all trees that abut the roadways,
thereby establishing a twenty to thirty foot margin of uninterrupted lawn. It has saddened me to witness the destruction
of some of my favorite trees at the park.
I definitely experience a palpable sense of loss when I walk along the
transformed roadways. I can’t help
wondering if the park personnel haven’t gone a bit overboard, removing robust
trees that really pose no threat to the public.
I guess a downed tree could block the roadway temporarily,
inconveniencing park visitors for a day or two, but does that justify removing
so many mature, healthy trees.
A couple of weeks ago I noticed that we had lost a cluster
of several trees near the entranceway to one of the park’s pavilions. I shook my head and grumbled to myself. Then I walked over and began to examine the
stumps left like stepping stones in the grass.
They were really beautiful. I
took out my camera and took a number of shots of them. I particularly like the image I selected to
include with my initial entry in that it is both recognizable and abstract at
the same time. The minor revelation that
I experienced was that I had found beauty in a spot where I had least expected
to find it, in fact, at a location that I associated with loss and
unsightliness.
And here’s my point.
I’ve discovered on the internet the exceptional work of many
uncelebrated and unrepresented artists, writers and photographers. Often, I’ll stumble across the blog or
website of a talented unknown while trawling through images to use as my
desktop background (which I change every few days) or when I’m researching the
art of a specific period, culture or location.
Many of these artists are quietly pursuing their craft without hope of
recognition, working solely for personal satisfaction. I myself count among my friends many
extremely talented artists whose dedication to their art form, whatever it may
be, is astounding, the results of their efforts being commendable. Generally, these artists are employed in
other areas to earn a living and pursue their art during evenings and on
weekends. And yet, even struggling
against this handicap, they manage to produce work of high quality. So, my thinking is that serious artwork can
be found in the most unexpected places if you keep an open mind and are willing
to put in the effort to search around a bit.
Hopefully my blog will serve as one of those unexpected places.
With all this talk of parks and trees, I thought I should
include one of my landscapes. This work,
View from Tymor (Oil on Canvas, 46" X 52"), was painted about a
decade ago. Though I’m definitely not a
landscape painter, I do on rare occasion choose to record a piece of impressive
or interesting scenery, usually with the intention of breaking out of a rut and
perhaps making some technical progress. I must admit that I find painting a landscape less
demanding than producing my figurative work and approach a landscape as a
pleasant change of pace. I feel freer to
take liberties with a landscape; this one I thought of as a symphony which I could
organize and restructure into related zones and rhythms of my design.
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