Spring Thaw

In the beginning, there were 10 stretcher bars constructed in 1988 of various sizes that were to be painted illustrations for a narrative surrounding the life cycle of a single leaf on a tree in the woods, through the complete seasonal cycle. Tree in winter was the first painting, begun in 1988 but put away due to the impracticality of trying to work with messy and toxic mediums in the living quarters of an inqusitive toddler. In 1990, and living in a different apartment where I had a single car garage to work in as a studio, I made an attempt to complete the Winter Tree painting, and moved on to this canvas. This work shows the same scene, but is focused on the rocks and stream close and to the left of the trees lower trunk, where the early spring thaw has allowed a small stream to flow again. I only lived at that apartment long enough to complete these two paintings, and as mentioned in my earlier post, I reworked the original painting yet again when I began working in my current studio here in Portland. I never returned to my narrative series about the leaf on the tree, and used the remaining stretchers for the other work that I made beginning in 2002 when my current studio became usable. These two canvases are a reminder of that ambitious project, and this image is a direct forerunner to my current interest in depicting the streams and lake shorelines of the alpine environs of the mountains that mean so much to me.

1990
oil on canvas
44 x 31

$1,200.00

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