Jill and the Eucalyptus Tree

Discovering this Painted Eucalyptus tree- Eucalyptus deglupta- has been totally Heaven sent. As a country child with parents who were both painters, all my life I have been passionate about both trees and colour. Here I found a tree that provided thousands of paintings as its bark peeled away, exposing endless variations of startling colours and shapes. This is why I prefer using its name Painted Eucalyptus to that of its more common one, Rainbow Eucalyptus.

I first discovered this sublime tree in the Huntington Botanical Gardens in April 2008 but it was not until moving to Pasadena in September 2015 and having The Huntington on my doorstep, that I got to know it intimately. Although I had subsequently found other examples of the Painted Eucalyptus in Los Angeles County, none moved and excited me as this one has done. 

I chose to use digital photography as my medium, regarding this as an extension of my work as a painter. Much as I admire and love the whole tree, which has the grace and simplicity of a Grecian column, I have been consumed by the abstract quality of close-ups of the bark’s transformation.

Since 2015 every week I have returned to photograph this miraculous, ever changing tree. We have been on quite the journey together. This tree combines the power and riches of every wonderful tree I have ever loved. As my subject, he fulfills me and as a livening creation he has healed me. This tree is a living prayer: throw off your heavy, dead past like I throw off my dead bark. Don’t look at the bark upon the ground but seek what brilliant treasures of colour are waiting to be revealed. Day after day this tree surprises me with a new story of beauty, loss, surrender, restoration, new life. Peace.

In my youth, I regarded my art work as a way of saying Thank You to God for this beautiful world we have been given. Now in my 80’s this is not enough: I urgently need to share what I see and feel, so that others may also experience the immense joy I find in all nature, the immense, all consuming, unbelievable joy I find in the bark of a single Eucalyptus tree.

Eucalyptus deglupta

The Huntington Botanical Gardens

 https://www.huntington.org

 Discarded Painted Eucalyptus Bark