Reposted from Country Life Magazine, Written by Sandra Smith
From a childhood spent among them, Broxbourne’s Debbie Baxter has, after a career in nutrition, returned to paint the woods that nature her soul.
You don’t have to be an arboriculturist to see that Debbie Baxter has an affinity for trees. Just take a look at her portfolio. Not only does it celebrate some of Hertfordshire’s finest, and largest, but is testament to a kinship the roots of which date back decades.
Raised in a tiny cottage on the doorstep of Broxbourne Woods she regualry climbed its giant walnut trees and silver birches, taking up lookout posts over the village and miles of woodland, It was her playground but it also induced a spiritual connection that continues to resonate and inform her soul and her profession. ‘I can still get lost in those woods,’ she says, adding, ‘it’s my go-to place when I need a bit of solace.’
While Broxbourne provided her artistic grounding, these days the 51-year-old is similarly inspired by the woodlands of Ashridge Estate where she says the light is ‘phenomenal’. But wherever she paints trees, it is in search of an intangible quality.
‘Something has to be magical,’ she reflects. ‘Quite often it’s the quality of light – how it comes through the trees. I will probably walk around a tree several times before I find the right composition. It’s an inner language. I look at how things relate to their environment. I want to capture that feeling I have when I see a tree.’
Another early and major influence on Debbie was her mother, Daphne Baxter, a successful and well-respected wildlife artist who, leaving ‘a massive legacy’ died last September at the age of 91. As a child, Debbie was surrounded by her mother’s exquisite paintings of foxes, deer and ‘birds galore.’
Yet despite a happy childhood, those early idyllic surroundings eventually became a drawback. ‘We were cut off, so I wanted to get away and see the world. I trained to be a nutritionist and worked in Indonesia. I loved my job, which was connected with natured in a curved way.
Alongside her career, Debbie continued to paint and recalls creating multiple images of one particular tree.
‘Indonesians give offerings to the frangipani tree, which has a connection between humanity and god. In Bali, I painted one frangipani tree about 10 times. There’s something about sitting in front of a subject – the more you look, the more it appeals to you. The process is like curtains being pulled back until you get to the core, a process of self-discovery.’
On returning to the UK eight years ago, Debbie resurrected a promise she made to herself decades previously, to make painting a major focus when she reached 50. Now, as a professional and about to move into her mother’s old studio, she has, for the practical purposes, switched from oil paints to acrylic.
‘I am prolific, usually working on three big paintings at the same time,’ she explains. ‘Oils take a long time to dry and I get impatient having to wait.’
Did the transition present challenges?
‘It took a long time to master the luminosity, Then one day I saw winter sunlight shining through a maple leaf. I thought I’d have to go and completed the painting in two hours. Something shifted for me in that process, I didn’t get lost in peripheries. That sort of created a freedom in me which was exciting.
‘It’s interesting because I’m probably stubbornly selfish. I know what talks to me and if I got out of that boundary I get lost. I have to feel excited about what I paint.’
She is certainly ambitious – the Royal Academy and Sky Landscape Artist of the Year are in her sights – she has already enjoyed exposure on prime time TV, if at a cost.
‘Seattle was on my bucket list. I booked a flight for 24 November 2018 then out of the blue received a call from the BBC. Countryfile wanted to do a story on me and mum and the only time they could film was 24 or 25 November. My holiday went out of the window!’
As well as the deep satisfaction and challenge of painting trees, Debbie’s work also has an environmental and health message – something that is reflected in ‘forest bathing’ and urban greening movements.
‘I'm keen to bring awareness to people of the sense of wellness trees offer which we haven’t really tapped into. To me, it feels natural to go from nutrition to trees — one source of healing to another.’
