“We need the tonic of wildness…At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be indefinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We can never have enough of nature.” 

― Henry David Thoreau, Walden: Or, Life in the Woods

As part of this show, I decided that I wanted to paint a small series. A series within a series. Four works, all 18″ x 18″ squares that focused on the beautiful chaos of the maritime forest that surrounds us here on the coast… The trees, shrubs, grasses, vines and moss. I wanted these paintings to feel natural not refined. No clipped courtyard settings or well maintained gardens. I wanted untouched and uncontrolled and lush. Order and pruning provided only by Mother Nature.

There is a beauty in the wildness. The overgrowth. The chaos. In these things, I find the reassurance that life goes on. That everything here is so much bigger than me and my small thoughts and worries. That left to itself, nature finds her own order. It reminds me to stop my efforts to control life and just take a breath and enjoy the chaos. And to cherish the small things… the wildflowers, the light on swaying moss, the resourcefulness of a vine climbing in and around the palm fronds, the twists and turns of the trunk on an ancient oak.

The wildness is so important to the carefully ordered, cultured existence that we have. Without it, we lose sight of what is truly “real”. What is truly important. What is truly beautiful.

All of these paintings are available as part of my show: A CONVERSATION WITH THE SAVANNAH LANDSCAPE at the Grand Bohemian Gallery: