Charcoal on paper. 18" × 24". 2003.
I don't remember making this. I would have been a junior in high school, in AP Art. That is about all I can tell you about the origin.
Pulling it out of storage earlier this year made me look twice. My first reaction was not that this was particularly special. Then it grew on me.
Part of what got me was the composition. There is no reference point in the piece, no horizon, no ground, nothing that tells you which way is up. I could have hung it upside down just as easily. I looked at it both ways and chose this orientation almost as a mini creative expression.
The other thing was recognizing my own hand in it. I have a lot of work from different periods, and when I look across it there are consistent threads: bold lines, compositions that push against the edges, a certain directness and sloppiness in the mark-making. This piece has all of that. Even without remembering making it, it is clearly mine, clearly in the same family as things I was making before and after. That recognition is what grabbed me. It did not feel like something I had discovered; it felt like something I had made, which is a different thing.
Photographed for archival in June 2026. First time it has been shared.