The carved image is one of the first images I made after returning home from a month long residency out of the country.

It was a lovely adventure, however in a landscape so much flatter than mine in Colorado. Driving home from DIA to Leadville, coming to the base and up into the peaks of our mountain range, climbing through s-curves, coasting up and down steep grades, fingers crossed I-70 isn't it the shit show it's known for, all I need to do is look out the window, look up at the massive rock walls and forested slopes, and remember the incredible landscape I have the privilege of living in. We don't realize how significant our mountain range is, how much we miss it when we're gone, until we're driving up it.

I often indulge my love of the mountains with drawings of peaks and valleys, this time though, I needed to carve it. I needed to feel the creation of each line more intensely than a pen allows, make each one with more intent and with more severe consequences if I slip. My art making is a physical act to connect my body to my mind, and I needed that connection to process this homecoming. So, I dug through my heaps and heaps of random, hoarded supplies to find my years old, unused speedball blocks of rubber, finally finding their purpose, and got to carving.