Sarnoski Avenue is a popular street on Yokota Air Base for photos of all kinds during the Cherry Blossom season. The busy elementary school is also right next to where I painted this on site. You can imagine this street is well walked, driven, and biked down.
Yet, the morning I got out to start this painting — the first one I painted of Cherry Blossoms— it was very quiet on this street. Trees playing their own beautiful and soft melody to me while I painted. Singing and chirping birds filling the same cool breeze that would brush my cheek. Soft petals gently falling off the branches through my painting session. Some of the petals even landed on my palette. It was a heavenly experience as an artist who likes to paint on site. I will never forget it.
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“Sarnoski Avenue’s Interlude” echoes the idea of a short pause, both on the busy street and of the season. While the blossoms are many and create a dramatic scene, they are soft and ephemeral.
This scene delicately portrays the magical moment and days when the Cherry Blossom petals start to fall like light pink snow, blowing in the wind.
A second back story
has emerged from this piece though. The final spring we lived at Yokota Air Base, this beautiful and large cypress or cedar —at least I think that is what it is—was cut down right before the Cherry Blossom season in 2024.
Now, I am sure they had their reasons. They have expert gardeners and tree care teams, but it was still sad to see this beautiful scene change. Change is the main reason for the Cherry Blossom season in Japan—to appreciate fleeting moments and views because they will never be the same. I like to think there is not many paintings out there that captured this large and amazing tree’s presence among the family of Cherry trees. I am sure the surrounding trees felt that cypress leaving.
And while many people probably have forgotten that tree or new people living there never knowing what was there—I still remember and this painting does too.
It is my favorite part of this piece. The cypress itself was the interlude to the painting and Sarnoski Avenue.
