A Carmel Pine 1918

Rose O’Neill, better known as the creator of the Kewpie doll, made this painting of a carmel pine with oil on canvas, sometime in the early 20th Century. Look how the paint is dabbed on, broken, almost pointillist in places, but looser in others. This kind of mark-making is about process: it's like O'Neill is thinking through the painting as she makes it, not just copying what she sees. I love the way the trunk of the tree is almost white against the darker greens and blues. It's like a ghost, or a memory. And the way the branches reach out, framing that view of the ocean, it’s so inviting. She captures the way a tree can be a portal, a way to see the world differently. It reminds me a bit of some of Emily Carr's landscapes, that same feeling of being in the presence of something ancient and powerful. Both Carr and O'Neill remind us that painting isn't just about representation, it's about feeling, about being in the world.