The other morning I was driving to work and noticed a double row of purple leaf plum trees. The ice had coated the red berries, and the sun was reflecting off the ice crystals: for an instant I thought I was looking at cherry trees in full bloom. The poetry in this oddness lingered all day - I want to paint the winter ice briefly changing the season to spring, but I don’t know how to convey what I saw.

So I ask myself, “How do I get there from here?”

Shouldn’t the first rule of painting be “paint what you see?” We know to paint what our eyes see rather than what our brain knows. And yet aren’t there images so stunning, so visually unique they’re better off left to the photographers? Who would look at a painting of ice-covered berries that appear like blossoms and say, “I believe that?” Yet a photograph would be believable, because it is.

Maybe the first rule of painting should be “paint the poetry of what you see.” Maybe the painter’s challenge - or curse - is to interpret the magic in the world with totally un-magical tools of the trade - brushes, canvas, pigments, finger, sticks.

There are days when I envy the photographers.

There are more days when I don’t.

Meditation - Steel Head Falls

30 x 40, oil on canvas

@2009