TOM KILLION’S HIGH SIERRA

For as long as I can remember I have spent part of every summer and a good many winter weeks in the Sierra Nevada. The magical landscapes and eco-niches of Yosemite have inspired my art, and eventually my Japanese-style woodcut prints, since my father first took me to the Valley in 1961. The Park and the whole range never ceases to provoke me to put pen and brush to paper. Five minutes walk from the pavement anywhere, in any direction, and the world is always new; a few hours or days hike from the trailhead and I am in a whole new universe of enchantment. Besides the beautiful curves of glaciated granite and its ever-changing reflective light, the singularity of each plant form–from the smallest flowers to the greatest gnarled trees–strikes my artistic imagination like nowhere else. I have done more sketches in the Sierra Nevada than anywhere, and can spend whole days wandering from sketch to sketch. As Alexander von Humboldt put it so well: “Voyages on foot taught me the poetry of nature.” And what better place is there to explore on foot than California’s High Sierra?