Easel on Stribling

2018-Present

This is a curated representation. For the entire body of work, explore www.easelonstribling.com

This work is meant to be “read”, linearly, like a story

Easel on Stribling is a multi year project unpacking the story of the U.S. Naval Academy that began in 2018. The title is named after the main paved walkway in the heart of the campus.

When I accepted my appointment to the United States Naval Academy in 2007, there was very little I understood about what was about to happen. During my senior year of high school, I discovered a series of photographs documenting plebe summer by Pete Souza. I poured over those photos and they became my way of mentally preparing for the step into the unknown that lay ahead. I was grateful for them. They were honest.

A couple of months later, my “birth control glasses” (the approppriate nickname for the acronym BCG, or “boot camp glasses”) were sliding down my nose as the sun was rising during a muggy practice parade over plebe summer, the initation boot camp of the Naval Academy. The pink light behind us produced the most peculiar pattern of shadows on the backs of the rows of plebes ahead. Head, rifle, head, rifle, head, rifle... If I could have stopped and captured the moment right then, I would have.

As plebe year progressed, those moments continued to taunt me. The deep viridians of Stribling Walk at dusk, peppered with the glow of fireflies after nights on the parade field... Feelings of camaraderie unparalleled from any team I’d been on. Magnificent blankets of snow that made my feelings of the Dark Ages really complicated.

I realized I needed to tell the story, too. But with my medium. With paint. From the perspective of someone who’s chopped the halls and cut her hair and endured the endless days.

“Easel on Stribling” is my story, but it’s also yours. It’s the journey of accepting the call, stepping past the threshold of the unknown, and arriving through
the other side a different person, yet completely the same.

I chose to use color and form representationally to speak to the specific events, but to keep the brushwork impressionist and loose. The details aren’t important. The moments are what matter.