A Story of Place
Inspired by decorative quilts, these illustrations blend desert creosote, lizards, and sun-baked elements to explore how the Southwest shapes identity, especially in a region marked by indigeneity, a militarized border, and the migrant journey for refuge.
Plants are safety.
In the desert, plants are quiet companions—offering shade, shelter, and an emotional lift in the harsh heat. Their resilience makes them steady friends. Among the cholla, saguaro, and organ pipe, thriving in the sweep of sand, we are reminded that life can root itself even in the driest places.
Monsoon season.
In July the long sigh of rain arrives. The dark clouds swell over the bleached land, the air thick with anticipation, and the streets fill with water. Miles out, curtains of rain rush forward, the thunder rumbling, and the wild bursts soak the earth. The monsoon season means renewal and chaos.
The mountains stay cool.
The sky islands around Tucson rise like green knuckles out of the desert, each mountain range a self-contained ecosystem pinned between earth and sky. As you climb, the air cools and the landscape shifts—saguaro-studded plains give way to pine forests and alpine meadows, as if you've driven from Mexico to Canada in a single afternoon. The climate feels otherworldly, a surreal blending of biomes that blurs the edges of geography and time.