Windbreaks in My Paintings

36 x 60 inches. This Painting is available at Bluerock Gallery.

Nosehill

I love Nosehill. Imagine living close to such a spiritual place. It is where I can walk the dog. Nosehill reminds me of the coulees of Lethbridge, where I spent time as a kid.

This motif of rows of trees, of windbreaks, is something that often haunts my paintings. It is a common re-occurring theme in my work. I’ve had to invest time to figure out what that means.  

 We lived on the edge of town, near St Patrick’s Cemetery. A trail leads around the cemetery. You get magnificent vistas at the back. In the past, you could walk to the river. There are some old cottonwoods both at the river bottom and at the top of the hill by the cemetery. On the prairies, when you see rows of trees, you know they were likely hand planted. Early in my art career, I once had a well-meaning critic say that trees don’t grow in straight lines. Yet if you are from the prairies, it is a familiar scene.

Planting windbreaks takes a lot of hope that those little trees will flourish and grow into something useful. They also need a lot of tending in the early days. Drought is common there. So many prairie farmers had to haul buckets of water to establish good root systems.

Cottonwoods may not be the most graceful of trees. I think of them as survivors. I like their twisted and tortured trunks. Often you can see where lightning has struck. They grow despite their dead wood.