Tree Hugging!

I’m imagining Michigan will look a lot like Minnesota, the place I called home for the first half of my life.

The closest thing you’ll find to an aspen tree in Minnesota is the poplar. There are plenty of birch trees, with the papery white bark I remember peeling from their filo pastry trunks, but it’s the leaves of the poplar that so closely resemble the aspen’s. Y’know, hunting for trees is not a bad job. If you’ve read some of my earlier posts, you’ve taken a brief look at the landscapes where I studied the aspens, and this snapshot is a westward view from where I examined some of Minnesota’s poplars on my weekend reunion. Sitting on a lounge chair, I had this incredible panorama while listening to the popping popcorn sound of acorns as they tumbled down the roof onto the wooden planks of Patti’s deck. It’s a sound I’d forgotten, and a vista I’ll never forget. I’ll be making Patti a paper landscape to hang above her mantel using this image and a handful of oak leaves as my reference. But not for a while. I have a hectic, non-stop, no time to play, pillar to post week ahead. I’ll be setting up the studio at Roosevelt elementary before I leave for ISU Friday afternoon to hang work in the Davis Gallery. Then back in time to board a flight through Minneapolis again for my connecting flight to Grand Rapids. And that’s an up to the minute report before I hop back on Frontier for my return trip to Boise just minutes from now.