here, i am

here, I am grows from the same philosophy that guides the Chispa Park cloth books: cultivating curiosity, observation, and belonging through direct experience.

for the first months of my residency, while making this book, i did a lot of scribbling with markers and note jotting, but mostly I just sat still.

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 anticipate. somewhere along the way, we stop visiting nature, and belong to it.