More art! Because you can't have too much...

These are a couple of drawings called "Screaming Tree". Around 1996 (or was it '97?), we'd had a mother of a winter followed with a spring full of wet. There was a big ol' tree our neighbor's backyard that arched over the fence and up a good couple of stories (or storeys...if you want to be really English about it.) The upshot is that the largest limb cracked and fell into the side of the house I was living in at the time. Didn't cause any major damage, but sure rocked the joint. The limb was sodden with several months of moisture and it's a wonder that it didn't do more damage. The next day, looking out at the tree from the second story (or storey), I couldn't help but feel that the gaping maw left from the breaking off looked very much like a mouth in agony.

Hence, the title.

Last, this following picture is from Powderhouse Park, across from where I last lived in Somerville, MA. It was one of those late fall days and the shadows seemed to have lives of their own. More than a couple of times, I've opted to render the absence of light as a its own etched form irrespective of its relation to the surface on which it's projected. I find the thick density of these black fields more interesting than if I'd modeled them with some more delicate sfumato in the rendering.