Palms

(in the artists own words)

The “palm” image grew from my first memories growing up in New Orleans, Louisiana. As the youngest in a family of five, when I was a small child, I often found myself alone in my room for an hour or so here and there. My room was on the second story, and as luck should have it, two huge palm trees lived adjacent to my window. the palm fronds (leaves) were eye level and close. I vaguely remember staring at and in the trees for long periods of time. To a child’s eye a palm frond is a very active place, with birds nesting and squirrels dining on palm dates. The trees symbolized many things to me. They protected me from imaginary intruders, they provided an escape route if I needed to escape, etc. They symbolized a certain degree of safety from a world that did not seem safe. Mythic symbols reside in all of us whether we are aware of their existence or not. To this day when the life presents itself as “unsafe” I conjure up my palm trees to smooth things out.