Print media + collage on paper

73”W x 43”L

2026

I was a lucky duck to grow up along Lake Erie, where the water was visible from my backyard. Summers meant Clifton Beach, sailing at Edgewater, and learning that the lake could turn on you in a heartbeat. I loved watching sailboats—tiny against all that water, yet somehow steady. The storms taught me early about balance, instinct, and hanging on.

This year the USS Cleveland was commissioned in its namesake city, just as my youngest son, Will, graduated and headed into the world after studying welding (and building many things with Legos). I think about his hands making things someday that have to withstand pressure, weather, and the goddamn unknown.

A mothership carries, protects, guides, and somehow keeps going. I’ve watched people my age  navigate illness, terrible accidents, divorce, job loss, and grief. And still, somehow, someway, my fellow wayfarers find a hospitable, lucky-break current, beyond that riptide shit storm, and do whatever it takes to float their boat. Even those who don’t think they have a working compass anymore, they find their way-finding their way too. 

This work lives in that space between turbulence and tenderness. Sometimes we are the ship. Sometimes we are the storm. And sometimes we just need someone to say, Come away with me. For a little while.