Featured Drawing (above): Cactus 4 la colina
ARTIST STATEMENT: Long before I became a writer, I grew up drawing. I quit drawing seriously for decades, then my family took trip to Arizona, where I grew up. Experiencing my Sonoran Desert with my daughter left me drawing desert life and Spanish tile for weeks after we returned to Oregon, where we live. These three drawings are part of that series. The world is so fascinating, and the experience of life so multifaceted, that self-expression requires multiple mediums. It felt great to come back to this medium after abandoning it for so long.
ARTIST BIO: Aaron Gilbreath’s nonfiction has appeared in Harper’s, The Atlantic, The New York Times, Sierra, Paris Review, SPIN, Adventure Journal, Kenyon Review, and The Dublin Review. His book The Heart of California: Exploring the San Joaquin Valley was a finalist for the 2022 Oregon Book Award. His Red Canary Magazine story about the return of California’s Tulare Lake and the Indigenous Yokuts people won an LA Press Club award for digital environmental journalism and received an honorable mention in the Society of Environmental Journalists’ Annual Awards for Reporting on the Environment. His story about Japanese whisky was nominated for a James Beard Award. Other pieces have been notables in Best American Essays, Best American Travel Writing, and Best American Sports Writing anthologies, even though, besides skateboarding and bodysurfing, he’s not sporty.
