When I was a little girl, there was a large elm tree in our front yard and I would spend many hours in its higher branches. I even had an "apartment" up there, with various limbs representing "rooms" in my pied-à-terre. I don't think it is any accident then, that I have lived the last twenty years of my life in a Swiss Chalet style "tree house" with an enormous silver maple tree right outside my bedroom window.
In my artwork I have been exploring my fascination with trees for their gentle and steadfast presence, while being a reminder of the impermanence of all things, including ourselves.
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| Linda Povey The Source of the Hollow encaustic mixed media 6x6 inches |
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| Linda Povey Solo Journey encaustic mixed media 4x4 inches |
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| Linda Povey Prayers of Impermanence encaustic mixed media 6x6 inches |
I have also been inspired by the work of other artists who are as enamored with trees as I am. Bridgette Guerzon Mills, a wonderful encaustic artist from Chicago, has done some brilliant work with trees as one of her themes. Widely recognized as an inspired teacher of encaustic painting, art journaling and altered book making, I am looking forward to taking a workshop with Bridgette sometime in the future.
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| Bridgette Guerzon Mills Visual Journal, March 9, 2008 Mixed media 5×7 inches |
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| Bridgette Guerzon Mills Outside of Time encaustic mixed media, sold 2012 |
In addition, my close friend of thirty years and artistic mentor, Cape Cod artist Sharon Hayes, has been introducing some of her photographic work into the encaustic process. Here's a sneak peak from something she's been working on in her studio, incorporating the ancient and magnificent trees of New Orleans.
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| Sharon Hayes Untitled encaustic mixed media 8x8 inches |
As a meditation, I go out onto my deck each day and take a picture of the majestic line of Norwegian spruce trees on the south side of our hollow, where they stand shoulder to shoulder like conquering heroes. Each day, the light is different, or the air, but there they stand, reminding me of this constant yet ever changing world. As I've gotten older, I find that the changing nature of things frightens me less and less, and that it is no longer something to resist but to welcome. These are the lessons that the trees have to teach.
The knell of the bells at the Gion temple
Echoes the impermanence of all things.
The color of the flowers on its double-trunked tree
Reveals the truth that to flourish is to fall.
He who is proud is not so for long,
Like a passing dream on a night in spring.
He who is brave is finally destroyed,
To be no more than dust before the wind.
13th Japanese Heike war tale
