BROKEN
I started this painting on April 6th, 2020, and finished it on April 27th. If you check back you’ll see that’s right in the first month or so of “isolation” in the Covid-19 Pandemic of 2020 here in Canada, and in particular, British Columbia. These are troubling and very difficult times for all of us.
I’d seen this tree, on the Squamish Reserve lands just north of Gibsons, for over 25 years. Though always intrigued by its shape, no painting ever “came into focus” for me. It was Joy who enticed me down there again early in April. We took advantage of our evening “social isolation” walk to make our way down to the ocean shore. She insisted that the tree had to be painted. It was in the evening as the last rays of the sun were warmly touching the gnarled shape. As soon as we approached the tree, I knew this was the time that I’d be able to find my painting.
It wasn’t until I got home and started working with the photograph that I noticed one branch having been broken off. And that broken branch dominated my thoughts as I painted the image over the next 3 weeks. I always find the meaning, the story of the painting, as I paint. But this one was different. I knew the title was supposed to be “Broken”, but search as I might I can’t find the story that would go with it. I couldn’t change the title, it had to be “Broken”. That broken branch somehow just insisted. The title was predetermined. So perhaps – in that is the message. That is the purpose of this image.
Perhaps the painting and the title are all I’m supposed to do. Maybe, in this time of very personal experience for all of us, maybe you are to find some reality in the painting of the old dead tree with the strange title “Broken”. We’re all making our way one day at a time through the stresses of “personal distance” and “isolation” in this year of the plague 2020. We all have our own personal experiences and stories as they pertain to the invisible virus trying to touch each of us. I’ll leave it at that. Maybe, in this historic year that we’re all finding our way through, you are to just enjoy the tranquility of the image, or perhaps you’re to find some very personal meaning in the title that demanded to be used – “Broken”.