There is much to say about the remnants of experience—not only those left by Hurricane Helene, but also the vestiges of people, places, relationships, and emotions. Vestiges 1 and Vestiges 2 are only the beginning. I believe the Vestiges Series may become a long and evolving body of work.
When Hurricane Helene struck my property, twenty-five trees were blown down, blocking every exit from my home. Much of the house was damaged, and I lived for many days without electricity. During that time, I watched as visible structural elements of my home slowly deteriorated. Each day I documented the ongoing collapse in my sketchbook, eventually beginning the first drawing in the series.
The large glued-laminated beam had split into two sections. One retained a small measure of its original strength, while the other hung isolated, barely resting on a narrow ledge nearly twenty feet above the floor. Both sections appeared to sag under their own weight, yielding to gravity with an almost human sense of exhaustion and sorrow. The drawing has become a vestige in itself—a record of one of the most frightening nights and mornings of my life—and reflects my own identification with the separated fragment struggling to remain in place.
Vestige 2: Mending Helene also arises from the aftermath of the storm but turns outward to the transformed landscape surrounding my home. Vines now engulf many of the fallen trees, while their decay produces remarkable clusters of turkey tail mushrooms. Branches of every size and shape have become almost unrecognizable beneath white fungal growth. Frayed, splintered limbs jut upward from tangled piles of vegetation and construction debris scattered by the tornadic forces of the mesovortex. These accumulations recall the immense heaps left behind by bulldozers after a disaster.
In Vestige 2, my intention is not simply to document destruction but to reveal the unexpected beauty that emerges through recovery. The drawing is my attempt to allow wonder—the persistent renewal of the natural world—to prevail over the visible vestiges of Helene’s devastation.