Isolation Series: Snow & Ice

"Snow & Ice"
11x14 marker & ink on paper

Winter has altered my views of the creek. The banks and edges are transformed, rimmed with geometric shapes; icy slabs in shades of yellow-grey, mauve, and white. The water level is high, dangerously surging, mysteriously black and tea stained. It has frozen over completely just once, during a cold snap, when it’s roiling surface stilled and stretched to offer wildlife a smooth white highway for crossing. Paw prints dotted the surface then in assorted zigzags and sizes. Today I stand along the cold-weathered banks watching and listening to a percussive winter chorus of dry grass rattles and swishes, crow caw staccatos, bare branched knocking, and crinkly water acoustics. Snow falls with a whisper into this moment and I give thanks for the hard changes around me. There is beauty here.