Winter Maple at the Ranch

2025, oil on stainless steel panel, 10 x 8 x 1.5 in, maple floater frame

This small painting catches a winter maple at a Nicasio ranch in the season when the landscape pares itself down to structure—branches exposed, color withdrawn, the architecture of the tree revealed without distraction. Winter asks for close looking: what appears still is quietly moving, and what seems simple deepens the longer you stand with it.

Without the fullness of leaves, the tree reads like a record of time—each limb a gesture, each branch a map of growth, weather, and years endured. The cool sheen amplifies the sensation of winter air: sharp, clean, and clarifying. In this stripped-back season, beauty grows quieter but no less powerful, found not in abundance but in resilience and form.

This piece invites you to reconsider what remains visible when the excess falls away. Winter offers an honesty other seasons often soften: the world reduced to essentials, the bones of things plainly revealed.