The Tyger

The Tyger

​"The Tyger" - acrylic on repurposed wood panel, 12 x 12 x .75  Ready to hang (Sides are painted; no need to frame.  Hanging wire is attached) Available for a limited time exclusively at Get the Gallery  Part of the collection "A View from the Gorge."

Tyger Tyger, burning bright, 
In the forests of the night; 
​What immortal hand or eye, 
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

from The Tyger, by William Blake

Wildfires rage through the gorge in summer and fall.  Like angry tigers, hungrily devouring everything in the path.   Except somehow, many of the trees still stand.  Petrified sentinels, hollowed by fire and yet upright and sturdy. 
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On a recent hike, thinking I would love to create art with a piece of charcoal from the gorge, I attempted to remove a small piece of charred wood from tree after tree.  Each of these had been reduced to blackened hulls.  Yet they were harder than I ever imagined - unbreakable.  Ultimately, I recovered a small chunk from the forest floor - a tiny piece of a branch, perhaps, that had fallen off in the fire.  The trees were otherwise unwilling to part with even the tiniest piece.

In an odd way, the petrified trees have become part of the mountain...bony, pointy fingers reaching up and reminding us of the peril that exists at certain times of the year.  That Mother Nature can turn her gaze upon things and, like Medusa, turn them to stone.

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About the art: In this piece I returned to the compositional fundamentals I learned from studying Brian Rutenberg earlier this year, which I call V, Saddle and Border Snake.  In this one, the tree crossing the diagonal stand in place of a vertical Border Snake, and I think functions well as the focal point and in providing an unusual perspective.  The small hotspots of  cadmium red on the two trees are the whole painting, in a way.  Resist, resist I say! (to myself when I want that glorious color undiluted everywhere).   They provide the perfect counterbalance to the cool Saddle of the lower portion.