I was on the road yesterday, going out to Erie. The drive out there takes around three and a half hours, most of it on wide, empty highway going through some of the more sparsely populated parts of New York. Many people don’t think of NY as having such emptiness and space. It’s an easy drive, one that allows you to listen fully to music. I spent my drive listening to a lot of things, really taking them in. I listened a few times to Michael Mattice‘s new CD, Comin’ Home, that I have mentioned here recently. It’s his debut effort and really showcases his special talents as a singer-songwriter and a top flight guitarist wonderfully. Mike creates an amazing full and deep sound with his playing on this CD which has it gathering a lot attention as it’s #1 on Amazon’s Hot New Releases for Acoustic Blues. I urge you to check it out.
I also listened to one of my favorites, guitarist Martin Simpson. Like Michael, his work is marked by its full and rich texture. Just great stuff. Here’s She Slips Away, a song that I think really captures the essence of his playing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQELHWJTdRU
Redtree Times 
A few years back, I took a vacation with my family to upper NY. I was amazed by the emptiness and space found there. Not quite the NY that we all think of.
Yes, that’s my part of the world.
I live with an empty, spacious landscape all the time. The land here is literally as flat as a table top, in every direction as far as the eye can see. I’ve found it shifts the emphasis from landscape to skyscape. There’s an “up” here that you can’t get from mountains. Because the land is so flat, everything is up. Especially the sky. The sky goes up forever. I think it’s a landscape that encourages introspection because there’s hardly any scenery to distract you. One interesting thing about it are the trees. Until people came to this land, it was prairie. A sea of grass. Every tree out here was either planted by somebody or came from a seed of a tree that was planted by somebody. Out here, trees mean people. You can scan the horizon and see two trees and know there’s a road between them, see a clump of trees and know there’s a house in their midst. Your red tree and it’s symbolic emphasis in your paintings evokes resonances of this in the importance trees have out here, but it also evokes a certain dissonance, because there’s only one, and it’s out by itself. For me, this has a feeling of wrongness to it – illogical, but there it is. It gives your paintings a certain dynamic tension for me.
You might like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_l6Y2FWMeE
Even though they’re talking about music, I think you as a painter could relate to what they’re saying.