Process

I once had the opportunity to explore, sketch and paint an old forgotten Christmas tree farm while vacationing in the area with my family.

Early one morning I began walking through the small stand of trees with my shoulder sketch bag and french easel leaning against a tree. The story of the tree farm was an interesting one to me but I was unsure about the potential for any artwork to come from it.

The story was that the owner of the property decided it would be a good father / son project to set up a small Christmas tree farm with his young son. They would plant tiny evergreen trees, tend to them, and then hopefully, make a little money for the boy in a few years.

The story went on that the father and young son’s relationship with each other gradually worsened and then fell apart. The Christmas tree farm became part of the collateral damage and was abandoned. Whether the farm was forgotten or not is another story, but the trees, now easily fifty feet in height, continued to grow despite everything.

As I walked through the trees and under the branches high above I became aware of an active but quiet stillness that seemed to hush everything beyond the tree line. Every once in a while I would hear a slight breeze whistling softly through the green pine needles high above. Sometimes, a slight wisp of a breeze would brush against my face.

Most of the lower tree branches, from an earlier time, were dead from lack of sunlight, zig-zagging above me like trusses above a colonnade. It was difficult to ignore the melancholy feeling while standing down in the middle of the trees looking up. I was not very enthusiastic about continuing on with painting but decided that I would stay and look for ‘something’.

It was a while later that the sun burst out and suddenly the blue, green and yellow of the fall day outside lit up between the outer trees as if beautiful stained glass windows on a huge cathedral.

I painted several hours that day and the following day and completed many paintings and sketches. I include some of them here, not because I think they are exceptional or unexceptional, but because of the unexpected way the painting process carried on that day. If nothing else, it was a good exercise to find the good in a situation, to not give up, and a reminder that nothing happens until you put the pencil or brush to paper.

As a poignant final note on the story, I heard later that the father had since passed on and had his ashes spread among the Christmas trees.