I had a bit of an epiphany this morning when a friend explained that he understood why I paint trees the way I do. He said he was looking out his window at the trees in the moonlight and he saw the structure of the trees against the night sky. I am honored even to be one of the thoughts a friend has when they lay in their bed in the stillness of the night.

Growing up, I had those How To Draw books. They taught us to think of a pine tree as a simple cone shape first. Or a cat as a group of circles. I don’t do that at all.

When I paint a pine tree, I sort of paint it the way it grows. I paint the trunk, and then I paint in the larger branches and then the smaller branches and needles. I don’t start with the outline of the tree.

I had never thought of this before. Because this had never crossed my mind, I had never thought that someone else might do it differently. Or that someone who doesn’t paint might not even have a method of painting a tree.

He also talked about the purpose of a frame around a painting. Again, as a painter, I know that this is the border of my composition. If I am painting from the natural world, the frame, or the edge of the canvas delineates my painting. It selects, from the entire world, what I choose to show. In nature, the story just goes on and on as far as the eyes can see, and much, much further. So while some artists may be very good at representing a view, a detail, a tiny snippet of nature with paint, it’s really not like the real thing at all. It’s an illusion… an impression… a memory.

It is partly this understanding that frees me up from the need to make my paintings look exactly like the real thing (they never will) or the need to make my paintings look like a photograph (I have a camera for that).

I want my paintings to look like paint.

This might not seem like a big deal, but it hit me emotionally because it was so validating. I realize that with all of my writing I am actually fighting really hard for everything in life.

My friend’s comments were so meaningful to me because they had substance. They spoke to my process, and they gave me a new insight or perspective on my own work. There are things that are so basic that I don’t see them. Something obvious to someone else can be absolutely invisible to me.

For all of my assertions of I paint for myself, I still value and crave conversation with friends and other viewers about the work.