Growth, 2021, Oil on Canvas, 30” x 40”

My brush first touched this canvas in 2018. The oil painting depicts an oak tree I loved to sit under while in college, my place to think and pray. Just as I started the painting I became busy with the semester’s assignments so I put it away. After graduation, I began again. This time I became too sick to paint. So once again, the painting found its way to the back of my closet. As I recovered from a neurosurgery I tried to paint more, but my coordination had been impacted. This is most notable in the varying brushstrokes and detail among the leaves. Another surgery forced me to stop again. After a year of recovery and physical therapy I was able to come back and finally finish the tree. This painting grew almost as slowly as its subject. We also grew together this painting and I. My skill as an artist varies with each branch, my depth as a person changing like its unseen roots; in one word, growth.