Memory (No. 1–3)

February was a bit of a quiet month. I felt the urge to move out of my comfort zone, so I took a break from my albums of photographic inspiration and lost myself in loose sketching and the gestural strokes of pens. When I reviewed the results, I realized I’d been exploring the landscapes in my memories.

I'm reminded of summer roadtrips in the dry, remote expanses of California. Oftentimes we'd be heading for a lake that was nowhere in sight. Instead, there were expanses of gravel and grasses, and maybe an occasional stunted tree. The sunlight painted enormous shifting patterns over the landscape.

In the years after I finished school, there were many walks along the miles of creeks, ponds, and lakes that meander through the East Bay. There was always some shrubbery between me and what I imagined was a pristine view.

As the seasons passed, two things began to distract me from the water views. First was the ever-changing cloud cover, from a sheet of steel gray to the thinnest of wisps. With every change, the landscape felt like a completely different world. Second was the shrubs. As they shifted from lush spring greens to dried summer gold to autumnal jewel tones and eventually wind-swept scraggles, I often found myself stepping towards the edge of the path for a closer look. Suddenly, there was a staggering array of fauna to examine, including the delicate weeds that sometimes revealed themselves in the gaps.

Many family vacations were taken in the mountainous regions of the west. Imposing walls of stone bit into the sky, and those sharp edges were never quite tempered by the dramatic billowing clouds. The trees became little more than fuzzy matchsticks lined up along the towering ridges. I was often overwhelmed by a sense of awe and power. Mixed with my tiredness from climbing the trails, I never failed to feel small, insignificant, and unworthy of their presence. Such views still intimidate me to this day.