This series draws on the ancient Celtic Ogham alphabet, in which each letter is a tree. Each painting carries the spirit of its tree into contemporary form through abstraction, collage, and North American roots.
The live oak — Dair in Old Irish, one of the most revered letters of the Ogham — is one of the most characteristic trees of the Texas coastal plain, and one of the most ancient symbols of strength, endurance, and protection in Irish tradition. The painting depicts a spreading live oak in deep winter, its dark branches alive with the distinctive rounded leaves of the species rendered in collage and paint — turquoise, coral, green, and gold against a ground of deep crimson. A blue jay perches in the upper left. Geometric shapes associated with the Divine Feminine float among the branches. The words PROTECTION and TRUTH embedded in the composition represent qualities assigned to the oak. The Ogham symbol for Dair appears at the right edge.