Had to get this one out of my system....

When Trees Bleed, 24 x 24, acrylic on deep cradle panel

I'm a Midwesterner by birth; raised in the flat plains of Central Illinois where the wheat and soybeans and corn often stretch as far as the eye can see - and well beyond the curve of earth's crust. To this day, I'm convinced that my early impression of so-much-sky is for me the ultimate symbol of what landscape is. The photograph below is one of many taken on a trip "home" a couple of years ago.

I had rounded a curve coming off the interstate when I glanced over and saw this little row of very green trees standing as sentinels in the triangle between onramp and interstate . My immediate thought was that the trees had bled onto the grass. My second immediate thought was that the trees had dropped red leaves in June...

My third immediate thought was that I had to photograph these guardians of red phenomena. By then I had realized these were poppies - and that it was the angle of my approach that magnified the intensity of the red. There was no way to (safely) capture just what I had seen from my van - but the image was imprinted on my memory and I've known I had to reproduce it. Thus the title comes from that first impression and my own commitment to the trees of our earth. We cut them, burn them, destroy them and replace the diverse species with concrete, blacktop and genetically engineered facsimiles. Do they not bleed? Do they not bleed for us?