| Passages: The Beginning
I have always drawn images of tree limbs and branches intermingling. I also love the way the growth habit of trees is
repeated in the leaf shapes. I had been working with these images about the same time I was creating the Quadrant and
Modular paintings. The Quadrant Series deals with the cycles of the year, and the cycles of life, both of which divide
into four (thus quadrant). Two things I think a lot about are the ideas of the flow of life = cycles, and the paths of
life = fate.
The third factor that created the impetus for these paintings is the fact that several of my close friends have been
dealing with the death of a loved one in the past year. It has affected me in an indirect way, in a way I was not
necessarily aware of. But the impact of it slowly came to my consciousness with each one in turn. Writing sympathy cards
is painstaking with wondering what to say, except "I am thinking of you". I think about them more than such a timeworn
expression suggests.
So in the end, the sentiments of feeling towards these cycles of life were perfectly represented by the imagery of autumn
- leaves and trees. I made an effort to use leaves with five lobes for the associations that has to the physical state of
being a human being. Of course the promise of the seasons, and the beautiful feeling of trees reaching from the soil to
the sky relate to my feelings about the positive attributes of the cycles of life, and transitioning from an earth form
to a more spiritual form. Somehow the image of a bird’s wing presented itself and I felt that reiterated the same idea.
When working in series there is usually one piece that suggests the theme title to me. In this case it is "Life’s Path."
This painting incorporates scripting of the word passage. | 
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