here, i am

here, I am is the result of my nine-month artist residency at taft gardens and nature preserve. it is my first children’s picture book (unlike the smaller concept books).

for the first months i did a lot of scribbling with markers and note jotting, but mostly I just sat with the place.

what emerged from my process was less a story about nature than a childlike invitation to be with it. this book drifts through a day in the coastal sage scrub with little to accomplish. there are sages to smell, turtles to pause for, poison oak to greet respectfully, a pond to sit beside, and stars to stay awake for. somewhere along the way, we stop visiting nature, and belong to it.