Once upon a time... a long time ago, I discovered meaningful abstraction (not at all an oxymoronic adjective and noun) in the bark of trees.  If you know the short stories of J.D. Salinger, you’ll recall a telephone conversation between Muriel Glass and her mother in “A Perfect Day for Bananafish.”  Muriel was on vacation in Florida with her husband Seymore, who had recently returned home damaged from the Big War in Europe.

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The girl turned the receiver slightly away from her ear. "Yes, Mother. How are you?" she said.

"I've been worried to death about you. Why haven't you phoned? Are you all right?"

"I tried to get you last night and the night before. The phone here's been--"

"Are you all right, Muriel?"

The girl increased the angle between the receiver and her ear. "I'm fine. I'm hot. This is the hottest day they've had in Florida in--"

"Why haven't you called me? I've been worried to--"

"Mother, darling, don't yell at me. I can hear you beautifully," said the girl. "I called you twice last night. Once just after--"

"I told your father you'd probably call last night. But, no, he had to-Are you all right, Muriel? Tell me the truth."

"I'm fine. Stop asking me that, please."

"When did you get there?"

"I don't know. Wednesday morning, early." 

"Who drove?"

"He did," said the girl. "And don't get excited. He drove very nicely. I was amazed."

"He drove? Muriel, you gave me your word of--"

"Mother," the girl interrupted, "I just told you. He drove very nicely. Under fifty the whole way, as a matter of fact."

"Did he try any of that funny business with the trees?"

"I said he drove very nicely, Mother. Now, please. I asked him to stay close to the white line, and all, and he knew what I meant, and he did. He was even trying not to look at the trees-you could tell. Did Daddy get the car fixed, incidentally?"

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Seymore came home from World War II with what we now call PTS.  We don’t learn from any of the stories why Seymore had a thing for trees.  What specifically happened to him in the war is not the important point of the story. If you're interested in reviewing Seymore's case, read also Salinger's "For Esme, With Love and Squalor."  If you don't know "A Perfect Day for Bananafish," read that one, too.  You'll find both of them in Salinger's, Nine Stories. 

I’m not suffering from PTS, but I have a thing for trees. I feel compelled to look at them closely... and to listen to them.  No, No, I’m not talking about the mysterious “shoooshing” sound of wind rushing through a stand of pine trees or the rustle of dry oak leaves in late fall. I like that, too; and it speaks to me on some level, but I’m fascinated by the stories suggested by abstract patterns in bark.  Eucalyptus trees, for example, are veritable Rorshach tests. I’m not talking about the marks left on trees by thoughtless passers-by who carve symbols or words into the skin of hapless trees that can’t run from abuse.  Those messages tell more about the abuser than about the trees.  One of my favorite trees in San Diego is a much-abused rainbow eucalyptus at a back corner of Casa del Balboa in Balboa Park.  Fools names (or the objects of the affections of fools) and inane messages have been carved all over the beautiful skin of that tree as high as abusers with knives can reach.  

My photographs today make as much or as little literal sense as the abstract expressionist paintings of Franz Kline, Elaine de Kooning, Clifford Still, Helen Frankenthaler, Jackson Pollock, Ho Ho Ling, and dozens of other artists.  I like their work very much. The paintings of these artists aren’t supposed to make literal sense, except as they are interpreted by the individual who has the courage to bring personal experience to them. If you can't find the images of artists intriguing, and if you don’t find suggestions in these bark photographs,  that’s your problem.