The crackle of dry red oak sent a shower of sparks spinning upward into the canopy of the river bluff. Out past the circle of firelight, the dark coulee swallowed the quiet murmur of the river, but inside the glow, the current was running straight through my head. I yanked a battered pocket notebook and a carpenter’s pencil from my flannel.
First mark on the raw kraft paper: Limestone & Leaf, locked to burnt sienna and pale bone. Crisp woodcut hatching laid down the sheer, ancient face of a river bluff, using the negative space behind the jagged stone to reveal the silhouette of a white oak branch.
The ash flared bright orange as a log shifted, triggering the next burst: Driftless Route Co. A heavy-line geometric crest framing a pair of crossed splitting axes, their handles morphing cleanly into tight topographic contour lines mapping the valley floor.
Graphite smeared across three more pages as the embers deepened to a steady, rhythmic glow. The cicadas droned their late-summer hum, but I was miles away from sleep, already plotting out the screen-print separations in the flicker of the dying fire.
