I grew up right here in little, ole St.Albans, Vermont, attended school here all the way through to high school at BFA. Born and raised on our family farm with 13 siblings, expensive toys were not an option. We used our imagination. “I loved to sleep out on the front porch looking up at the trees and finding things like many do looking up at clouds.”
I have always had a love of trees, especially the big, huge ones and the scrawny. Not so much the beautiful ones. My eyes are always drawn more toward the old, craggy ones. I suppose feeling that not as many people admire those left behind.
When looking at a tree I often see the elderly people, old and worn out but not about to give up. They remain standing among the beauty of the young.
At first I just used photos to capture what I could see and then moved on to acrylics and finally coming up with a way to give them dimension. In this way I feel I have given them life again.
I have been living in Milton, Vt. for the last 30 years or so, with a stint in S.Carolina and a few years ago going thru a hurricane in Florida. The hurricane really made me see how quickly the beauty of a blossoming Jacaranda can become one of my craggy trees brought back to life.