You may have noticed that I am developing a habit of drawing furniture in the middle of these birch tree-laden forests of mine. Furniture with humans, cats, and crows interacting with them. Why? Well, I like humans (as subject matter) and crows and cats. But the furniture has it’s origins in the heart of the Rocky Mountains.
I like to travel cross-country by either car or train. I hate flying, period. So in order to visit my numerous left-coast-dwelling friends and family, I point my car west or I catch a cab to Union Station for the next California Zephyr or Empire Builder out of town. The first time I took the train to California I loved it. I made the mistake of riding coach (imagine a 3 day school bus ride only with alcohol available to everyone) but the scenery and not having to talk to anyone made me love train travel.
Anyway, on this first trip, I learned that day 2 is spent mostly in the Rocky Mountains. And by in I mean IN – the train takes 8 hours to climb and switch back and forth between the mountains before popping out the other side. ( I also learned that it only takes one hour to descend. On the return trip the descent is into Denver. It was dark when we did this and it looked like we were flying into Denver. It was pretty amazing.) That first trip in the mountains was incredible. The train goes deep into the mountains and the scenery was breath-taking. It was a bright day and there hadn’t been much snow yet so you could see the occasional critter and dudes kayaking down rushing rivers. It almost made me want to go to an REI and become outdoorsy. But it did make me understand and appreciate just how beautiful the non-flat parts of this country are.
So there I was, nose pressed up against the train window, cranking Luscious Jackson in my portable CD player, daring not to blink because I might miss something cool, when I saw it.
We were between two mountains, in an area where you couldn’t see any roads, trails, water, or anything other than the woods and the train pass. It was just sitting there, in the middle of a clearing, surrounded by long grass and thin-trunked trees.
A refrigerator.
I was stunned and intrigued. How did it get there? How long had it been there? And where was the door? It was at once sad (Trash? Here?) and delightful (Doorway to a magical land?) and I remember chuckling to myself, “Oh, America.” On subsequent trips on the California Zephyr I have not seen the refrigerator again, but that image has stayed with me.
I have seen odd things next to the rails on other routes, but most train lines run through populated areas so the sad accumulation of decades old discarded cars, trucks and TVs (?) makes sense. Still sad, but not WTF weird.
So when I started developing the world that the character in she’s in the trees lived in, I went back to that image of the refrigerator in the middle of the Rocky Mountains and used it as a jumping off point. And now that same image is fueling the surround me (working title) series. And, yes, I do have a drawing of a fridge in a sea of birch trees in the works. I mean, how could I not?