“Garden gone wild”. Acrylic paint on canvas. 16″ x 20″.

During the latter part of 2021, the figurative subject of my artwork changed from trees to animals. Here a yellow bird presides over a chaotic flower garden. This picture has a light heart and conveys the joyful spirit of Spring. God has blessed us with an abundance of life. But, we know, as the seasons change life wanes and then dies. Our God is good, however, and we can trust his promise that life will come again. It is remarkable to me that quite naturally we all have faith the sun will rise tomorrow and Spring will come next year. It is our own renewal that we doubt.

This picture obviously is not a naturalistic rendering of a garden. The shed is constructed all wrong, the bird is much too large, and the blue “rope” is simply a gesture to create a movement to counterbalance the solid quality of the shed. I find that contradictory elements like these make the picture more interesting to look at.