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Sweet memories
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Front Range from the front seat
There are some roads I have traveled so often that I have permanently etched into my memory every landmark, every sign, every single geographical feature along the way. The seventy miles between Colorado Springs and Denver is one of those stretches. When I was a kid, I knew exactly how far we were from our…
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Perennial pagoda
This Sunday my town is celebrating the 100th anniversary of the pagoda at Point Defiance Park. Originally a streetcar station, the building features an Arts & Crafts design, Japanese-style roof and Welsh ceramic roof tiles. A teenage arsonist nearly destroyed the structure in 2011, but the subsequent restoration brought back several of the original features…
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Ghost lodging
The Panama Hotel was the centerpiece of Seattle’s once-thriving Japanese community, until every one of the neighborhood’s residents was rounded up and imprisoned during World War II. Many stowed their personal belongings in the basement of the Panama for safekeeping—and never came back to claim them. The few who did return after the war found…
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Boston Strong
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Calligraphic cobblestones
Roche Harbor is a hidden little pocket on San Juan Island, with impeccably preserved turn-of-the-century buildings, picturesque lime kiln ruins, a pristine saltwater inlet, and wharf buildings that hearken back to some (perhaps slightly revisionist) halcyon era gone by. Yet I had to force myself to even look at those things, let alone sketch them—because…
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Only a paper moon
It’s difficult enough to sketch from the passenger seat of a moving vehicle: keeping a steady hand, drawing quickly enough to keep pace with a changing landscape, etc. But when you throw in trying to sketch by moonlight… Well, I guess you just have to be willing to embrace imperfection—and wait until morning to see…
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Thar she blows
If you ever have to ask for directions in New England, beware. Folks there have a tendency to reference landmarks that no longer exist (this quirk is bred into me, too—sorry to anyone I’ve ever confused). “Turn left where the pizza place used to be.” “Go just past where the old highway ran through before…
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Golden Gatekeeper
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Life, illustrated
