A Time to Cleanse

Having spent four decades writing and illustrating books and periodicals on every topic imaginable, there are few subjects that I have not explored over the years. From my syndicated features to cookbooks and novels to children’s literature and everything that falls in between. Albeit, usually in the studio and for the past 20 years, through the pixilated lens of a computer.

2020 started out no differently than the year before or the year before that. I had just completed writing and illustrating the tenth book in my Jesse Steam Mystery Series. In March, I was set to embark on a 10-month long book tour to promote my series. Then Covid came a-knockin’ and the world changed. So, I spent that ten months trying to unlearn everything that came before.

Lemons into lemonade. Embracing the break and the new, socially-distanced quiet, I dusted off my plein-air box and my journal and I set out to capture – over those 10 months, the stories and the out-of-the-way places that dot this unique and breathtaking state.

Here, I’ve distilled that body of work down to these twenty images and reflections.

I call it, Twenty to the Fifth Power.