A new painting, this a 16″ by 20″ canvas that I call, for now, Triumphant One. I’m still mulling some other titles, most concerning some form of the word triumph or alluding to the word labor as symbolized to me by the various patterns running through the fields. I originally considered The Triumph of Labor but felt that it might be too easy for the casual viewer to read that as a political statement. And, though I have long sided with the cause of organized labor and the aspects of it that have long benefitted us as a people, that is not what I saw for this piece. It was smaller in scale, more personal in how it spoke to me.
To me the triumph of labor I saw was both in the final product, as I see here in the Red Tree as it basks under a brightening sky, and in the sheer act of the labor itself. The fields, to me, represent not only hard work in how they are shaped and developed. They also symbolize a sense of joy in the actual doing, a pleasure inherent in the sense of purpose that is acquired from this labor.
And that’s what in see in this piece– both joyful triumph and a sense of purpose. The joy of simply working at what gives one pleasure and meaning.
Redtree Times 