Under the Trees and Through the Grass. Where I played and explored as a child—and an adult—my escape, my reality, worlds often physically smaller and yet always larger than me. Revisiting the book after many years, I was astounded to recognize its influence on my creativity. Colors and shapes of nature, flashes of the unexpected, something just out of sight until one takes time to really look, perhaps a little uncomfortable or unsettling; all hallmarks of my paper and fiber work. My deep love of our Earth inspires my use of abandoned materials: damaged or unwanted textiles one step away from horrifically huge piles of textile waste, cast-off magazines and papers still holding stories waiting to be rewritten, the occasional unwanted object destined to rust away for years in a landfill.

I was still marveling at how this one book in my past informed my present when, in an all-too-familiar flash of ADHD clarity as I was packing to leave town, I remembered I was supposed to alter the pages and not just the cover of my chosen RE-covery II book. A couple minutes of sheer panic led me, of habit, to my art journals, my refuge and repositories for uncomfortable emotions. Like forests they are undemanding, imperfect, meditative. They contain hidden meanings, surprises, bits of dreams, remnants of nightmares. They are not created with intent to conform, to be seen, to be judged, but only to reflect who I am at the moment of their creation. How fitting, then, that I overlay journal pages on a copy of my childhood book, as a tale of who I once was, who I am no longer, who I am still.

That which lies deepest within the heart never grows old.