Hazel / Coll Painting in Process

Hazel / Coll, 24x24", acrylic and collage on canvas, is part of my Ogham Tree Alphabet series. I am using the North American tree equivalent to those associated with this old Irish Alphabet. In this case, the tree is the hazelnut, which grows in the Pacific Northwest and provides handsome edible nuts, sometimes called filberts. 

The hazelnut (Coll) has always been a symbol of wisdom. In Irish mythology, nine hazel trees grew above the Well of Wisdom, dropping their nuts into the water where the Salmon of Knowledge fed upon them. When young Fionn burned his thumb while cooking the salmon and instinctively put it in his mouth, he gained sudden insight — a spark that shaped the rest of his life.

This painting plays with those symbols: the well, the flowing movement, the hidden knowledge stored in the hazelnuts. Like the myth, it suggests that understanding can arrive all at once, through a small moment of heat, light, or accident.

Hazel / Coll November 25, 2025

Hazel / Coll November 24, 2025

Hazel / Coll earlier version