The tree still stands, seeming to have made its peace, for now, with City Light.   Its girth indicates that some time has passed since it was an acorn.  Perhaps it retains knowledge of an Edenic Seattle, as yet unacquainted with the present ongoing mindless exploitation of its community resources.

The eight years of the painting’s unconcluded state was spent accumulating skill, patience, courage, and the new brushes needed to establish the branches of that tree.  But first there was a need to establish the more distant trees, behind which it would be necessary to re-construct the houses lining the south side of Marion Street.  Eventually the downtown buildings had to be brought into line with these changes. Layer after layer of new paint was applied, mostly in the upper left quadrant, now thick with revisions.  At this point, it became apparent that the ash cans in the foreground needed attention . .  .  As for the current creep of downtown skyscrapers which have cluttered the sky since 2011?  They did not make the cut:  instead Mortal Taste* emerged as a superannuated reality consistent with the dilapidate appearances of an earlier time.

*See Milton, Paradise Lost