Redtree Times

Featherlight– At Little Gems

I always figured we were born to fly, one way or other, so I couldn’t stand most men shuffling along with all the iron of the earth in their blood. I never met a man who weighed less than nine hundred pounds.

― Ray Bradbury, A Medicine for Melancholy

This new small painting, headed to the West End Gallery for their annual Little Gems show, is titled Featherlight. I chose this title because the contrast between the weightiness of the earth and sun and the feathery lightness of the sky.

Plus, it seemed to me that the Red Tree here is filled with a distant longing, as though it knew it was born to fly.

Yet, again and again, it finds itself unable to break free of the heaviness of the bonds it holds with this earth.

But even though it finds itself trapped between the weight of the earth and the feather-lightness of the sky, it holds tight onto its dream of flight.

Even for a nine hundred pound man with all the iron of the earth flowing in his veins, simply having the dream creates its own lightness.

Inside, the tree is forever featherlight.