Pollination & Deep Roots

Two new paintings for you today!

Pollination:

This painting is 2 separate panels, meant to be hung with a couple inches of space between them:

I wasn’t sure about the title at first. I don’t think there is literal pollination happening between the two trees here. I intended it as a love connection of sorts, or a communication of life force between the two beings. Then I considered that since they are trees, “pollination” is an appropriate description, if not a literal one.

This painting is very large, and you can’t really get a feeling for the scale of it just looking at photos!

The second painting is titled “Deep Roots.” I was inspired to paint it after reading a book to my child: “I Can Name 50 Trees Today!: All About Trees,” part of the “Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That” series. The page about the Wild Fig tree states: “Nearly 400 feet deep grow the roots of this fig. That’s almost as deep as this oil-drilling rig.”

Incidentally, based on the scale of the tree and its roots in my painting, the roots I painted are probably only 150-200 feet deep, if that. But still visually impressive! This ties into my recurring theme of yin and yang, heaven and earth, and balance in general: we tend to think of trees as reaching upwards into the sky, but in reality, they also reach down into the earth just as much, or many times more.