The Last Dance

I have always been an artist at heart. I traveled from the mountains in Park City,
Utah which is where I left a big part of my heart. It was difficult for me to move
away from hiking, skiing, climbing and just breathing the mountain air. I had to
adapt quickly to the lifestyle in California in order to be with my grandchildren and
family.

The one thing that helped me to adjust was a very large bottlebrush tree in our
backyard in Lake San Marcos, California. Initially, we contacted a tree specialist to
cut down the tree when we first moved here because it looked like a giant bush.
Like cousin “IT”. The tree specialist decided to trim it first and I fell in love with the
tree once he was done. The tree was full of life! We had birdhouses in the tree
which housed many wrens who sang in the springtime. I spent many hours
watching and listening to the constant flow of life that was part of that tree.

Through many seasons I painted and sold several of the paintings with the tree in
mind. “The Tree of Life” in watercolor and The Tree of Life in oil. “Dream On” which
was an up close painting of the female entity incorporated into the Tree of Life
series. They have since sold. Nevertheless, I decided I was going to create one
last painting of the Tree of Life to move on to other beauties in this area. I had the
canvas in my studio and was ready to imagine another painting with the tree of life
in mind.

Along came Hurricane Hilary the night before I started the painting. I heard a large
crack in the middle of the night and ran to my backyard finding that the tree of life
blew down. I cried a lot that night and the next day but decided to create one more
painting in celebration of The Tree of Life.

As I was painting, her figure came into view and singing along with Bocelli I
watched the blank area in my backyard and began to paint the leaves. Much to my
surprise, the leaves became feathers and I decided to go with the angelic feel of
the painting. She danced in front of me as her fallen bottle brush flowers fell to her
feet. There was an vivid orange storm in the background and with tears I finished
the painting calling her “The Last Dance”.