Ancestor's View

Armed with old journals and remembered family stories, my husband Brent and I set out on a quest to find and explore long forgotten settlements, deserted and decaying homesteads of pioneer ancestors. We wanted to stand on the same ground, and seeing the places, imagine what it must have felt like to start a new life in a wild and unsettled land. We knew some of their stories - their dreams. We also know how those dreams continued with us - their great, great grandchildren and our children and grandchildren.

This old, gnarled tree stands sentinel near one of those abandoned homesteads somewhere in Utah. I'am curious - did Mother Nature let it grow there or did hopeful young settlers dig the hole and plant the sapling in that very spot, confident that the tree would bring shade and shelter as time passed. Wouldn't it be fun to sit and converse with a tree like that?

I named this painting "Ancestor's View," and painted it with watercolor on Yupo paper.