When I was little, I would disappear into the woods behind our home in Herndon, Virginia. I spent hours climbing trees and finding refuge in them, making tiny homes and villages from found objects, following streams and catching tadpoles and frogs with my brothers and sisters.
I could stay there all day.
The trees were my friends, and you never forget your first friends.
Under the Sugar Maples
Those woods aren't there anymore. The land was developed, and the place that felt enormous to me as a child now exists mostly in my memory. There's a particular kind of grief in knowing you can never go back.
Maybe that's one reason I keep returning to trees!
I’ve lived in Colorado for many years now, where the trees are different but the fascination is the same. I see them through color…the chartreuse, citron and lime of summer; fall's ochre, rust and crimson; raw umber and Payne's gray branches against a cobalt winter sky; and spring's celadon, pale pink and lavender, promising everything will begin again.
Stay Gold | Ltd. Edition Prints Available
I love that trees never stay one thing. They can be exuberant and colorful, stark and quiet, delicate and incredibly strong. They lose almost everything and come back.
Sometimes I think maybe I've been rebuilding those childhood woods all along, not literally, but through color, memory and the landscapes I've encountered since.
Colorado Quilt | Available Original
The woods I knew are gone. But the trees stayed with me.
