This painting, Cadmium:Wet, is an homage to the temperate rain forests of the pacific coast range. Although I completed it in 2014, I am thinking of it today as I sink into the slow dormant winter. The rain is falling and the trees are dripping. I am as much a part of this complex ecosystem as a bat, fern or vine maple. I am like a fish in winter cold water lying at the bottom of a stream, perhaps under a bank, inert.
The rains stop in late spring and the dry season begins, stretching out until mid fall. The summer dry season is a riot of propogation and fruiting as every living thing rushes to complete its life cycle. Humans harvest for their needs before the rains come. As a child growing up on a farm, I looked forward to the winter because we didn't have to work all the time. Winter was a time for study and the mind.
Unlike tropical rain forests, our forest is a mix of conifers, alders and maples. The abundance of water and humidity supports infinite variations of plant and animal life in a timeless cycle. It also supports us. I am continually grateful for this forest that asks so little and offers so much. This time of year I become introspective. It is a time to grow roots, a time to reflect.
In this painting the humans are woven into the rain forest, ghosts in the landscape. We may not realize or remember but this is the habitat in which we live. Urban spaces have displaced the forest but the rains still come, and not far from our doors this rich environment is alive with biodiversity. The fish swimming through are the sea run cutthroat trout, indigenious to the Oregon coast range. This fish relies solely on the purity of the coastal watershed for its propagation.
Cadmium:Wet is now a part of the Southern Oregon University permanent art collection.
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