Seeing the Forest and the Trees – a tribute to Data Analytics It’s a proverb dating back to the 16th century. “You can’t see the forest for the trees” You can’t see the big picture because you are focusing on the details, or you can’t see the other trees because there’s a big old tree blocking your view. I want this painting to capture that almost magical moment when you finish compiling your carefully collected data into a visual graph and suddenly… you see the obvious truth that lay hidden before. You see that X correlates with Y, or crosses at a specific point and suddenly, you know something you may have only guessed at or maybe never suspected. You see it clearly, and even someone not in your field can see it. I can see one piece of data, the tree in front of me, just this side of it, and wonder if it is typical or indicates a trend… but only when we have all the data CAN you see the whole forest. It also opens up more questions. Feel the magic and excitement of what can look very ordinary in real life… a line on a chart. But so much more.
