Redtree Times

One of the things in my paintings that is often commented on and asked about is the Red Chair.  Sometimes hanging in a tree, sometimes alone on a hilltop or in a field or sometimes on its side on winding path, it is one of those recurring images that I use as a symbol.  It has come to represent ancestry and memory as well as acting for a symbolic stand-in (or sit-in) for humanity’s place in the landscape.

When asked about the time of its origins I always say that I think that it came about later,  several years after I had been showing my work for a time.  I can never give a truly accurate answer because it just seemed to come around at one point or another.  It just started showing up.

But going through some early work this morning I came across this old ink and watercolor piece from mid-1994, at a point when I was still struggling to find voice.  It’s an exercise, an experimental little thing that I would quickly do every so often back then to  jog my mind and play with forms and colors.  It’s kind of a goofy little thing, not something I am particularly proud of or excited by.  I called it Hoedown.

But the thing that jumped out this morning was what has to be the first appearance of that Red Chair.  It’s a little cock-eyed, crude and worn but it is a Red Chair.  So now when I am asked I can say without hesitation that it first popped up before I ever began showing my work in galleries.  It actually precedes the Red Tree now that I think of it.  I guess I will now have to see if that makes an earlier appearance somewhere as well…