I live in an older home built in 1938 that feels to be wedged between the forest and the sea, though both forest and sea are relatively tame and sheltered here. The yard is an extension of this urban forest with overgrown rhododendrons and hydrangea bushes growing amidst native trees and ferns. Early travelers to this place would have encountered an unbroken wall of thick old-growth Douglas-fir forest running down to the shoreline. These trees became timber for railway ties and the building associated with a flourishing mill town. The yard houses two tall Douglas-fir trees that were amongst the first to germinate after the initial logging of the hillside 125 years ago.
My art comes out of this place, both local and distant, real and imagined.