Souvenir Art

I went to a Vine Arts meeting last week and was inspired. Artists in our corner of Fort Collins are doing really great stuff! My friend and fellow artist Jane Basile is particularly inspirational these days. She recently applied her mad science skillz in Sierra Leone to help with the Ebola outbreak and in the minuscule amount of spare time she had, she made what she called, "souvenir art." I never thought about art made in a place being considered a souvenir, though it makes complete sense to me now that she said it. Lately, I've been nostalgic for mountain biking and the nearly 200-mile bike trip we made last summer from Telluride, Colorado to Moab, Utah. And then I realized: I made some souvenir art on that trip! So here are four of the drawings I made that week. They do invoke different memories of the trip than photos. (Be sure to click on the pictures to see them up close.)

I couldn't not include a photo of Jane's Africa pastel drawings. Aren't they fantastic? (Each one is about 8 inches square.)