Why Am I Obsessed with Trees?

I started painting trees in 2011, at age 25. I am STILL painting trees, although I’ve also expanded my work to include cities, monsters, and toasters. I have a number of art pieces in my home that I’ve purchased from other artists that feature a tree (or multiple trees) as the subject. I even have a tattoo, on my left forearm, of a tree with two blue flowers in the branches and a modified Celtic knot band for roots.

More birds! More trees!

So what is it about trees? Why do I want to surround myself with them on a daily basis?

I remember sitting with my second husband in an empty park in his hometown (population in the double-digits) and I was looking up at the trees there imagining my future with him (spoiler alert, it didn’t work out.) The trees were MASSIVE! So tall they were impossible to climb, and so thick at the base you couldn’t get your arms around them. They were old, so much older than I will ever be. And they will probably remain long after I’m gone. They were just there, living. You could smell it in the air – not traffic, just nature and life. I can’t explain why my connection with nature is the way it is, I’ve never known a time when I didn’t love being outside.

Even when it's winter, 3:00am, and snowing!

Many people know that I grew up in a military family. My parents met overseas in the Air Force. We moved across the country three times while I was growing up (once in the middle of the school year.) When my dad retired, we landed in my mom’s hometown (less than 2,000 people.) There were new students occasionally, but the majority would graduate with the same 100 kids they started Kindergarten with. I was a shy outsider, and I stayed an outsider by never joining any extracurriculars. It wasn’t until I got my first job that I learned how to be outgoing (I was quite literally told I’d be fired if I didn’t start talking to the customers) and started making friends with my coworkers.

When I got into my mid-twenties, I was ready to settle down and get married, buy a home, have a family of my own (although I wasn’t ready for kids until I hit 30.) With the urge to put down roots came the first paintings of trees. I loved the idea of permanence. The trees stayed exactly where they were. They had a history in one place, which was a foreign concept for me. As a young adult, I was also concerned with growing up into the person I wanted to be. Trees grow upright (literally growing up ‘right’ as I wanted to.)

"Orange Tree", 12”x24” acrylic and collage on canvas board

An interesting tangent related to my tree paintings – one of my early and most popular tree paintings, titled “Orange Tree”, was created early on in my relationship with my second husband. It was full of bright colors, showing two figures holding hands at the base of a tall tree. It was so full of hope and love, the embodiment of a new relationship that could fulfill my dreams of family, and a place to call my own.
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Less than a year later in what turned out to be a destructive and abusive marriage, I painted a second painting, called “Hazy Sunlight.”

“Hazy Sunlight”, 12”x24” acrylic and collage on canvas board

In this painting, you see a lone figure at the base of the tree, looking off at a city in the distance. The colors are muted, nearly missing when compared to “Orange Tree.” It was shocking to me, the first time I saw them next to each other. I knew something was wrong in my life because the colors were gone! My art has long been an expression of myself and my emotions. Here’s a post I wrote specifically about my art as therapy throughout the years.

It's surprisingly difficult to take a picture of this tattoo!

I’m happy to report today that there are plenty of bright colors in my artwork, and that my lone tree tattoo has added a family portrait of six of my monsters, representing myself and my husband, my two stepsons, and my two daughters. Now when I paint trees, they are retaking urban environments. In another ten years, maybe I’ll be able to look back and understand what it is going on in my life that makes me paint them this way now. 😉