May 18th, 2015
I have my tiny souvenir bottle of Mount Saint Helens ash sitting on my desk right now, as a reminder that it was thirty-five years ago today that the mountain erupted.
The event happened a year before I was born, so it’s not like I have personal memories of it—but Mt. St. Helens still crops up in my work now and again. It also shows up on the horizon from time to time—
—but not as frequently as you might think. It’s often in its own bank of clouds, so it’s not visible much, even when Mt. Rainier and the other volcanoes are out. In fact, I had never seen Mt. St. Helens up close (despite a few attempts) until ten days ago. With the anniversary of the eruption looming, I figured it was high time I remedied the situation. It just didn’t seem right that so far the only thing I’d seen in any detail was the gift shop.
Speaking of which… Normally I’d say that my sketchbook drawings are my best souvenirs, but I think in this case, there might be an exception:
Our “before and after” salt and pepper shakers, given to us by a geologist friend. I’m not gonna lie: there’s no way I could ever top these (er, no pun intended).
As another “souvenir” of today’s anniversary, I’ve got sketches of Mt. St. Helens from the past few years over on Drawn the Road Again. So go take a look—but head for high ground if you hear any rumbling!
May 18th, 2010
I’ve had volcanoes on the brain for nearly two years. Littering my studio are volumes of sketches, nearly 6,000 photographs, reference books, stacks of maps, and a brand new, functional prototype of the artist book about Mt. Rainier I’m working on—all evidence of my attempts at capturing a series of fleeting moments and freezing them in time and on paper. (Rainier is hiding there in the clouds, at the bottom of the above photo—but what I love most is that the cone looks like an erupting volcano! And speaking of which…)
Photo by the U.S. Geological Survey
And then there’s the little corked bottle of volcanic ash on my desk, inscribed with the date of the last major eruption of Mount St. Helens: exactly thirty years ago today.
I’ve been staring at that bottle on and off, all day, reminded of why I’m doing all of this (and why I can’t wait until I have something to show you!).
This project began as a tribute to Katsushika Hokusai, the Japanese printmaker and illustrator who created his famous Views of Mount Fuji woodblock series over 150 years ago.
Hokusai wanted to demonstrate the unchanging immortality of Fuji amidst the transient nature of everyday life. To him, Fuji was forever, an unshakable icon of Japan and one of the foundations of his culture.
The trouble is, Fuji is a volcano—just like Rainier and St. Helens—that by its very nature is constantly changing right along with the lives being lived in its shadow. That knowledge is where I found the root of my own project, and since then I’ve tried to document the fire mountain in my own back yard—to be there for every change and permutation.
Today’s date lit a bit of a fire under me, and prompted me to get on with the business of finishing this artist book. Because one day this is all going to happen again. Mount Saint Helens will be first, I’d wager; being the most active and youngest volcano in the Cascades, it may only be a matter of a few years. And some day, even if it’s a hundred or a thousand years from now, Rainier is going to have its turn, too.
For now, though, I’m just doing my best to pay attention to the present moment, because one day I may need help remembering how things used to be.
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