Description
I created the original oil pastel painting #106 on 30 April 2005. The image was inspired by a chapel that sits on a spring in an olive grove at Teria, a now-deserted hamlet in the mountain above Elika, the village that I have written about in my book Dancing Girl: Themes and Improvisations in a Greek Village Setting [available for purchase on this site]. I began with a number of bold, brightly colored lines. When I realized that I was making an olive tree, my rational mind argued that a tree trunk can’t be colored pink and orange, and I was tempted to tear up the page and start over. Fortunately, I remembered to “trust the process,” and I painted the tree the way it “felt” to me.
