June 8th, 2013
Cox Reservation, Essex Greenbelt, Essex MA
Oil on Canvas, 18 x 24 in
(sold)

The plein air group (led by my favorite living American artist, David P. Curtis) (favorite living Canadian artist is John Smith) that I normally go out with had cancelled the day’s painting in favor of Sunday, which promised better weather. I work on Sundays, so went out to Essex regardless. It didn’t rain, in spite of the forecast, and I enjoyed a very peaceful day of painting. As you can see, there was a lot of springtime debris in the air that made it onto my canvas. I still have to tweak a few things but on the whole, this one’s done.

Incidentally, this is the same view I painted the day I learned Ray Allen had opted for the Heat over the Celtics. There is a cedar tree that stands at the edge of the cluster of trees on the right. In my earlier painting (July 8th? 2012?) that solitary cedar, sitting at a crossroads between meadow and marsh, represented Ray Allen to me – and it has stuck, I can’t see the tree without thinking of him.

In my mind, Ray Allen’s choice to leave the Celtics was justified when I realized had he been here, he and his kids would very likely have been at the finish line of the Boston Marathon at the time the first bomb went off, cheering on his wife and his mother who would have been running. It’s horrible as it is with the number of victims and devastation we had, to add him and his young family to the list would be awful. So I made my peace with it then. However, this past week Ray was in the news saying that for him, the fact that his team is in the Finals justifies his choice. This just – dropped him in my esteem. Completely irrelevant though it is to him, I’m ignoring Ray. Hence my exclusion of the tree from the picture.
Yes, I know I’m nuts.