PinnedForests After FireWhile some seeds wait for light, others wait for fire. By now it’s a familiar site, these sentinels of devastation. This is what remains of the Caldor Fire that started on August 14th, 2021, and burned for two months. It raged over three counties: El Dorado, Amador and Alpine in…Forest5 min readForest5 min read
Jan 6, 2022Simple Objects: A contemporary archeological excavation revisitedRemember the Camp Fire in Paradise, California? It wasn’t the first catastrophic wildfire, and horrifically, not the last. What follows is a project about resilience, reality, and adaptation. It’s about what we each retain when we lose, about objects that no longer have value, except as memory. …Wildfires4 min readWildfires4 min read
Dec 9, 2021What Lies Beneath Part OneA dichotomy between the beauty of the surface and hidden forces below only becomes evident from the middle of the river, not the shore. It’s 7 in the morning. I’ve come to the river for my second day kayaking on moving water. Emphasize the word moving–as in flowing. Downstream. …American River Parkway5 min readAmerican River Parkway5 min read
Dec 1, 2021Reflections on ice.Wrights Lake, just north of Highway 50 in an area that suffered catastrophic fire, just on the edge of Desolation Wilderness is a typical alpine lake surrounded by shuttered cabins and untypically devoid of almost all sound. This is not a day of paddling from one place to another. …Sierra Nevada2 min readSierra Nevada2 min read
Nov 8, 2021Cosumnes River PreserveOn a crisp fall morning before the sun rises, we load up a tandem kayak and head for a wildlife preserve along the only river watershed in the western Sierra that has no major dam. (Wiki) Over 46,000 acres, it’s a jewel of protection, about 30 minutes south of Sacramento…Cosumnes River Preserve3 min readCosumnes River Preserve3 min read
Oct 13, 2021A note to Rebecca Solnit upon finishing her memoir: “Recollections of My Nonexistence”After leaving my husband of 44 years for the third and final time in late 2010, I asked, “So what exactly was the problem you had with me?” He replied, “You were always so opinionated.” …Rebecca Solnit2 min readRebecca Solnit2 min read
Oct 10, 2021The Branch Where the Blue Heron SleepsAlong the bank of a lake on the north side facing the south, trees in a particular spot shine white in sun. My eyes scan spindly trunks to the very top, where four large masses of branches cling. Clearly not branches from these trees, these are nests. Nests of the…American River3 min readAmerican River3 min read
Oct 2, 2021Beavers & OttersThe backstory: In the spring of 2020, the Water Forum commissioned me to create a painting for the 20th anniversary of a critical water management agreement for the river that runs through Sacramento. There are many wonderful artists in the region who make paintings of this “wild & scenic”…American River1 min readAmerican River1 min read
Aug 18, 2021How to maintain a long art career…tees?Never in a million years did I ever guess I’d be aspiring to create tee shirts after surviving 50 plus years as a professional artist. What? The lowly tee? I do have a history with a tee, just one tee, in Los Angeles 1972. I’ve written about this image before…Creative Process5 min readCreative Process5 min read
Aug 6, 2021Why we can’t publish a new edition of our book “Water: More or Less”My co-author, Rita Schmidt Sudman and I recently reunited in person after a couple of covid centuries. I was so thrilled to see her. We tossed around the idea of updating our book which we’d starting writing in 2015 in response to the last obvious drought. Rita was the Executive…Groundwater Management2 min readGroundwater Management2 min read
