I started these drawings in the early part of COVID, when it was still called Corona and we still didn’t know exactly how to be in that world. Everything was a danger- we sprayed everything down with disinfectant, washed our hands til they bled, and didn’t dare breathe the same air as someone else. We couldn’t get close, couldn’t talk or sing or dance with anyone except our close pod, but even that was cautious. We all grew distanced and remote, we lived on screens. Would it ever go back to the way it was, before?

I loved walking in the woods with my family then- you could hear more birds it seemed. The car sounds were gone, and the people. The air was electric with other sounds and things to notice. You could stand in the middle of the road and not see cars. In all the darkness, there was some beauty and the trick was to recognize the different-ness of it and pay attention to it, because it would go back someday, and it did.

In this world my child was 9 and I was worried, so I made a parallel place to think about things.

These drawings are a way of dealing with the world my kid landed in. There, a child wanders, discovers, and battles their way into adulthood- learning what to trust and what to be wary of. Drawing was a way of envisioning a fearless outlook for my daughter as she navigated a sometimes dangerous, but more often beautiful and strange world.