Redtree Times

Secret Garden— Part of the June Show at Principle Gallery

Sometimes since I’ve been in the garden I’ve looked up through the trees at the sky and I have had a strange feeling of being happy as if something was pushing and drawing in my chest and making me breathe fast. Magic is always pushing and drawing and making things out of nothing. Everything is made out of magic, leaves and trees, flowers and birds, badgers and foxes and squirrels and people. So it must be all around us. In this garden – in all the places.

― Frances Hodgson Burnett,     The Secret Garden

I used the title Secret Garden for this new painting that is part of my upcoming annual June show at the Priniciple Gallery. I see this piece as representing that special inner part of ourselves that we all carry but seldom show to the outside world.

Our secret gardens are in that internal region where we hide away most of our thoughts, ideas, and feelings. Things so valuable to us that we guard them closely, seldom sharing them with others for fear of being exposed to scrutiny in the form of criticism or ridicule or anything that separates us from the flock and makes us appear vulnerable.

I certainly understand that.

But I have found that sharing this secret garden is an essential part of being an artist. My belief is that art succeeds or falls short based on its honesty, commitment and depth of feeling– concepts that fall within the realm of vulnerability.

Things that live and grow in our secret gardens.

It can be a scary thing, this sharing of our secret gardens. I certainly get unnnerved at times when showing my work. I am sure I have shared the first time I saw my work all together in a solo gallery show, at the Principle Gallery back in 2000. Walking into that space and having my work suddenly surrounding and shrouding me instantly brought on a feeling of nausea. It all seemed so personal, so vulnerable.

I felt like a rabbit in the middle of a busy highway and wondered in that moment if I had made a mistake and that maybe I should have kept my garden a little more secret.

But this rabbit survived. And I guess the lesson I learned from that experience and subsequent shows was that those feelings of apprehension and vulnerability come naturally when you honestly share from your secret garden. You want these things that mean much to you to reach out and have some meaning to others.

That’s what I see in this piece which tells you everything you need to know about how I feel about it.

Secret Garden is 24″ by 12″ on panel and is included in Depths and Light, my upcoming show at the Principle Gallery in Alexandria. The show, my 23rd consecutive show there, opens Friday, June 3, 2022.