Walking with the dog in the woods in New York State, driving through the Adirondack Park taking my son to school, visiting in-laws in the northwest, and vacationing in coastal Maine, one can see that forests are struggling. These familiar areas are facing insect infestations, invasive, vines, acid rain, pollution, drought, fire, human expansion, and more. Yet there is beauty and nobility in these trees even as they struggle. I have made paintings of these trees in grand scale so we all are forced to look up and acknowledge their superior scale and grandeur. I have selected trees from diverse locations to convince us that these problems are everywhere, even right next to us.
Trees are amazing. They offer shelter and food for birds and animals. Some can live for hundreds of years. But trees are also a disposable commodity: for paper, furniture, lumber, fuel, toilet paper(!), as well as our own shelter and food. Yet trees are but one indicator of an astounding world that we humans have selfishly plundered.
I have made paintings, sculptures, and works on paper to call attention to a rapidly changing world that is increasingly indifferent and perhaps hostile to the lifestyle we have assumed we could continue forever.