Evergreen
My beloved State just suffered a shocking event and a great loss.
My State is a small community. We host beautiful, rugged terrain, weather all the seasons and continue to live and survive where others just visit then retreat.
The event was a mass shooting. Not uncommon unfortunately, to our nation, to our world. Uncommon to us. One of us did the shooting. Our friends and family were hurt and killed. We lived on edge while it unfolded. We are angry. We are sad. We are resilient.
This watercolor of the pinecone is my offering, my response. A video clip – which I thought was respectful, true and funny – prompted me to paint this. Evergreen is a symbol of timelessness, of everlasting, and of enduringly fresh. The pinecone is sturdy, hardy and yet holds the seeds of the evergreen tree.
Perhaps I think too much into the symbols and meanings, but I have always loved pinecones. We use them as decoration and even as fire starters for the long winter wood stove fires. I like my small painting of a pinecone. I hope you do too.