A tree with a tale to tell

Local artist Alan Tuttle spent five days doing this plein-air painting at the Lank family farm along Route 1 near The Rookery North Golf Course.

Tuttle says the story behind the tree is one of putting down roots, but it's also a love story between a son and mother. Planted in the 1920s by the late Albert Lank and his mother, in her memory he refused to cut down the tree even though it was blown over and destroyed a smoke house.

Tuttle titled the painting “Committed.”