David Driskell:

Symbolically the pine tree meant everlasting, cuz it’s always green, mm-hmm <affirmative> uh, the spiritual relationship. And so, I felt that this was cathartic for me in the sense that I could paint the pine tree and not feel like I was rejected because of race or social association, anything like that. And so the pine kind of became my symbol. Um, as I often say, they don’t talk back, <laugh>, they are accepting and kind and generous. And so, over the years, this has been a recurring theme in my work mm-hmm <affirmative> and if you see my studio, it’s surrounded by tall pines, 60, 70 feet tall. And so, when I look out any direction, we built our house almost any direction you look out and you’ll see the pines, the gracefulness of the pines. So, they became very important. They still are. Mm-hmm <affirmative>, in that sense mm-hmm <affirmative>.