Sadly, a large old Norwegian Maple had come down, but in doing so it left this now unobscured view of these Hemlock and White Pine trees. The limbs and trunk of the old tree were recycled into firewood by teams of volunteers helping-out the campus grounds crew. One of these wood splitting teams was led by Rob from the maintenance department, who later took it upon himself to stack the wood, but in doing so created a sculptural round bee hive appearing structure that was over six feet tall, and looked strongly reminiscent of the stone and ice art constructions of British sculptor Andy Goldsworthy.
Several weeks later there were a series of daily snowfalls, the last of which included light but blustery winds which shook the upper limbs of the pine trees, loosening the newly collected powdered snow and sending it drifting. Late in the afternoon, while observing this and admiring the tree shapes (and not for the first time, as I was considering doing a painting of the landscape someday) my attention was drawn to the patterns of the drifting snow as it fell in sheets from the trees and dispersed on the wind. I was suddenly aware of how the patterns created by this cascading and drifting snow echoed the extended shapes of the branches of the trees. A short while later I was all setup to paint. It was cold when I was painting this one from atop the hill located out in front of the Barn. I had to use rubbing alcohol to keep my paints soft enough to work with.