I am concentrating on studying trees since I feel a deep connection with them – they stand tall like giant people, some elegant, some ordinary and some twisted and distorted. We are all born imperfect, even at birth, and from then on we accumulate damage as a consequence of life. In trees we can see majesty but also we can clearly see the scars of life and disease; trees can remind us of our own strengths and help us to stand tall in our minds despite the difficulties of life. Stephen Spender described pylons as being like nude giant girls in his poem, which is simply called ‘Pylons’: I think of trees like giant people, with which we can have a quiet but powerful communication. My drawing is not at all like that of Ruskin, however I share with him the desire to draw from nature in order to better appreciate, and marvel at its beauty.
Walking in the woods it’s easy to see shadowy figures in glimpses and to notice faces and figures on the trees themselves; sometimes there may be standing forms, perhaps shaped in a half toppled rotting tree, or at other times there may be horizontal forms in the roots which look like animals rather then people.
The gnarled forms, or the delicate dancers, amongst the trees can be unnerving, intriguing, strange or beautiful – trees have the impact of being wonderful elegant and majestic, while at other times they are sinister and scary.
A walk amongst trees can light up the imagination.