Native Places

Book excerpt: Native Places is a collection of 64 watercolor sketches paired with mini-essays about architecture, landscape, everyday objects, and nature. The sketches relate the delight found in ordinary places. The short essays, rather than repeat what is visible in the sketch, illustrate ideas and thoughts sparked by that image and offer a fresh interpretation of ordinary things. The goal of Native Places is, in part, to transform the way we see. Through its pages, barns become guidebooks to crops and weather; a country church is redolent of the struggle for civil rights and human dignity; and a highway rest stop offers a glimpse of egalitarian society. Native Places also expresses the belief that writing and hand drawing are not obsolete skills. Both disciplines offer us the opportunity to develop a natural grace in the way we view the world and take part in it.