
'Tree of Life'
'Tree of Life' is a new painting that was partly inspired by another painting (shown below) that I did in early 2007 titled, 'The Roots of a Broken Society'. 'Tree of Life' is an acrylic on 24" x 24" wood panel. This painting, like 'The Roots of a Broken Society', can be viewed in two positions and it works either way.

When I painted 'The Roots of a Broken Society' back in 2007, I was thinking about the broken, dysfunctional society that I call home. Citizens of our Country are quick to refer to ourselves as a superpower, and yet, we are a very, very dysfuntional, hypocritical society. I'm not saying we are all bad, but we have a lot of cleaning up to do here at home. We really have no business acting like the police and citizens' brigade to the world community until we get our own community better organized. We may be the oldest democracy on this earth, but relatively speaking, we are a very young community. Our behavior, as a society, is the equivalant of a teenager trying to lead the people of the village, even the elders, with no regard or respect for the knowledge that others hold.

'The Roots of a Broken Society'
My new painting, 'Tree of Life' could just as well have been titled, 'The Roots of a Broken Society, circa 2013', but I was trying to have a more positive outlook, as titles go. But it makes me quite sad to look at our society of 2013. Not only are we NOT any better now than we were in 2007, we are much more divided and broken. I can't put my finger on any one exact reason we are so broken, but I can opine that religion and politics have played major roles in creating the divide, and the mixing of politics and religion are acting like an anchor in holding our society down. One aspect of our broken society that is disturbing to me is that we are fighting a "war" in Afghanistan against the likes of the Taliban while here at home, we have our own version of the Taliban that is trying to destroy America and we are doing nothing about it. We aren't even considering it a war, and it is, a war raging against America by some of our own citizens.
I am hoping that America becomes a better society in my lifetime, but I won't be holding my breath. I will try to remain positive and hopeful that we will become much closer to the "superpower" that many of our citizens (unrealistically) think we are.