Vocabulario has it’s inception in two series called Winter Into Spring and Fall Into Winter. I drew the trees everyday for two seasons and at the end of the series the drawings developed into a more abstract interpretation. All of the “glyph-like” shapes are based on the markings on the aspen tree trunks. As I painted them they started to look like unusual types of land formations. The patterns and linear elements are taken from early survey maps like the Hayden Survey of 1874. These were atlases I was familiar with from our days in the Ridgway Gallery. I used Barry Lopez’s wonderful book, Language for a New American Landscape, for the titles choosing words that were unfamiliar to me and in some way looked like the image. Using all these different reference points enlivened the process for me tying history and language to a visual interpretation of the landscape.
