The Pawlet Box

In 1996, I kayaked and camped along the Inside Passage of the Alaskan coast. Setting out from Juneau, Petersburg, Sitka, and Prince of Wales Island, I endured the rains and I sketched. Traveling in a small van and a smaller boat forced me to capture the vastness of Alaska in six inch square sketches.

The fishermen and tides, icebergs and glaciers, whales, eagles, and bears, Haida and Tlingit artifacts, and animal teeth and bones I encountered there were the subject of the small sketches which in turn have become a fragmented mosaic of one hundred fifty 9x12 inch works on paper.

The Pawlet Box embodies the coming together of two worlds: my recent exploration of Alaska and a long connection with Canada. Since childhood, I have spent many summers in the remote northwoods of Ontario; the rocks, waters, weathered bones, and people of the isolated back lakes have become a natural part of my own internal geography.

The materials I have used in the Pawlet Box include watercolor, gouache, inks and crayon. The work is unified by my fierce perspective on Alaska and northern Ontario, and a cold palette.