Sunbreak Serenade

Fall on Oswego Creek  24x30 oil

There is a remarkable tree at the confluence of Oswego Creek and the Willamette River.  I am no arborist, and don't know what sort of tree it is (locust?) but it is rooted in the sandy soil and boulders and for weeks at a time the roots are under water when the river is high.  I don't know how it survives it, but it does, year after year.  Today, Election Day, I only hope our democracy is as tenacious.

I marvel how often I return to this small creek for inspiration; it is only a few hundred yards long, from where it drops from the dam at the lake until it feeds into the Willamette, but it is filled with a myriad of individual pools and lagoons and rocky tumbles, and I find endless possibilities there for painting.  Here is a sketchy version from a little ways upstream:

I was trying to loosen up and leave more evidence of accident on the canvas, something that I find excruciatingly difficult to allow, and I'm sure a therapist might be able to better explain how fixed I am on trying to portray reality.  It might be argued that I have a limited imagination, though I prefer to believe that Nature is beautiful enough on her own without my embellishments.  

Below is a photo taken a couple of days ago, the reason for the title of this post, and it is of the same area as the first painting, but from upstream looking down.  I am the figure on the right in the mid-distance, and I am marveling at the brilliant sunlight breaking through the threatening dark sky, lighting up the fall colors.  The subject tree is on the left, aglow and reflected in the still waters of the creek.  Moments of beauty like this can give meaning to a lifetime, and they lift us up when we have fallen, they carry us on.