As an artist and climber, I am interested in the visual appeal of geology—the cracks leading our eyes skyward, the folds in the land creating pockets of otherworlds, the summits giving us a new perspective on where we just were.

As a climber I want to experience these places, but as an artist I want to capture the essence of them. I try to distill the prominent lines or features that spark our interest and ignite the desire to climb. I’m a climber and have been since I was young. Those early experiences shaped my ongoing fascination with the natural world and our place in it … in feeling intimately connected to nature and yet insignificant in the larger picture. A lot of my work is concerned with exploring our relationship to the landscape.

With these drawings on top of maps I am interested in trying to encapsulate the multilayered nature of our experience on stone or in the mountains: the initial planning stage or seeking out of lines represented here by the map; then, layered over it, both the real-time experience and the impression left on us after the experience.