DEEP ROOTS

From a childhood spent among them, Broxbourne’s Debbie Baxter has, after a career in nutrition, returned to paint the woods that nurture 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 regularly 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.’