I was looking at some older paintings in my little basement studio today and this one caught my eye. It’s a small oil painting called Forest of No Return that I made in 2006. The title Forest of No Return refers to a song from the Disney film Babes in Toyland:

Can’t you read,
Can’t you see,
This is private property,
Aren’t the signs, plain and clear
No one is allowed in here
But since you’re here,
You should know
We will never let you go
You can cry, you can shout
But you can’t get out.

This is the forest of no return,
This is the forest of no return,
Those who stumble in,
Those who fumble in,
never can get out.

But I wasn’t thinking of Disney or Babes in Toyland. At the time, I was listening to The Sun Ra Arkestra’s wonderful Disney tribute record, Second Star to the Right, in the studio. I listened to it loud, and let my painting pound to the same rhythms. I can’t really explain that experience very well. It’s just something that happens from time to time when I least expect it.

“We have come, seeking sheep…”,
“Now alas you’re in too deep”
“We don’t mean any harm…”
“You have caused us great alarm”
“Then we’ll be off, on our way…”
“Sorry but you’ll have to stay”,
“We will cry, we will shout…”,
“Still you can’t get out!”

This is the forest of no return
This is the forest of no return
You have stumbled in,
You have fumbled in,
Now you can’t get out.

This painting was one of a set of paintings I made a few months before an exhibition at NSCAD out in Halifax. However, for reasons I don’t remember, I chose not to exhibit this one at the time. Curiously, of that group of paintings, this one and another called Sky Dragons are the paintings from that group that continue to resonate with me.