I'm not the first artist with aspens as my muse, and I won't be the last. There's the symbolism of this incredible organism, united by a single root system and one of the first species to come back after a wildfire. Walking through a glittering gold fall aspen forest or skiing through a silent snowy one is a quintessential Colorado experience. And then there is the opportunity for artistic expression: aspens offer a fascinating intersection of shape and color: round + white.  The reflected colors across all the tree trunks result in intricate, architectural mosaics only Mother Nature could dream up. I painted my first aspen tree trunk as a teenager in the backyard of my childhood home in Steamboat Springs and have gone on to consistently study five or so specific aspen groves tucked in the mountains between Steamboat and Denver. Over the past 20 years, I return seasonally to these groves, observing how the forests have grown, evolved, or died, adding photos to a collection that now numbers in the thousands.