At the start of the lockdown of 2020, my backyard neighbor, a licensed, animal rehabilitator, asked if I would like to spend an afternoon with two baby squirrels. We arranged a contactless drop-off and I took the squirrels inside my bedroom where I let them crawl on my shoulders, in my hair, and around my feet as I sketched. It was profound how something so common to see running along my roof could feel so alien when in close proximity; how large and important something as small as a baby squirrel was for me on that day, and how small the fear surrounding the pandemic became in the meanwhile. Not long after, I began noticing a family of possums in my yard and the cliff swallows that gathered under the bridge where I walk my dogs. I learned that possums could swim in pools and that cliff swallows built their homes in the beams of freeways since we have no cliffs in Houston. Focusing on how the animals and birds maneuvered as usual while the rest of the world was paralyzed gave me a new appreciation for their toughness, as well as the wildness we have access to, even living in a metropolitan area. My quarantine became a defined by the magic and enchantment experienced in my own backyard; light during a time of darkness. I worked on large sheets of paper and experimented with household materials such as house paint and furniture wax to achieve the dramatic chiaroscuro apropos to the impact they had on me in that moment in time.
