I’m so glad that I know more than I knew then
Gonna keep on trying
Till reach my highest ground
I wrote that when I was visited last week in my studio by a film crew from WSKG that they had taped me working on a painting in its early stages. The painting above is the final version of that piece. It’s a 20″ by 40″ canvas that I am calling Higher Ground, a title somewhat borrowed from the Stevie Wonder song of the same name quoted above.
This piece has a couple of different elements than most of my work. For instance, the rocky walls of the canal/river as well as the rocky outcropping of the rise on which the Red Tree stand. There’s also an orchard in the lower right corner that I use sparingly in these pieces. I have sometimes said that these paintings are often not really about the Red Tree at all but are more about the mood created by the combinations of color and form. But the Red Tree is definitely center stage here, everything revolving around and focusing on it.
Higher ground could represent the safety offered by it in times of flood or in combat. For me, I see it as attaining a higher plane of being, or at least aspiring to it as a goal. Perhaps not the same highest ground that Stevie Wonder is seeking , which seems to represent a Raptured heaven. No, I see it more as being free of the the everyday, represented in the anonymous houses below. To a point that is above hate and anger. Above envy. Above spitefulness and deceit.
Above judgement. I add that because I don’t see the Red Tree as looking down on those house below it here. Rather, I see it looking upward and outward. And higher ground affords that better view…
Here’s the song from Stevie Wonder. Great groove to start a day.
Redtree Times 
Those are some interesting qualities you’ve associated with the “everyday” life going on in the houses – not quite what I expected.
I’m not sure I’ve seen a painting of yours that feels more comforting. The tree seems to be sheltering the village below, serving as a protective and beneficent presence. I actually see its attention directed downward – funny how we can see such different things.
I like your reading of this piece and could easily see it that way myself. In fact, in some moments I do and happily so.
But let me be clear that I am in no way implying that the baser qualities that I listed are what I associate with “everyday” life. Unfortunately, these qualities often do reside in our everyday lives and many times overshadow our many other more noble qualities– love, caring, forgiveness, empathy and so on. But what I meant to infer was that the Red Tree was seekig to move beyond those negative qualities that sometimes resided in itself, its own shortcomings.
On Tue, Mar 19, 2013 at 8:06 AM, Redtree Times
I’m not sure what it says about me that, when I saw the title, “Higher Ground”, I thought, not of Stevie Wonder, but of this song:
And here’s a somewhat creepier version. I can’t help but think they went back into the closet after the camera stopped filming (or whatever it is that cameras do these days):
Oddly enough, the common theme appears to be . . . turquoise.
I want to know what’s in that plastic bag on the closet shelf.