We rented a lakeside condo for three and a half years. For three and a half years, every window in our home faced Utah Lake. And the lake watched.

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It had a front-row seat while I submitted college assignments next to a sleeping baby. It watched me carry my newborn up and down three flights of stairs for the simplest errands. It encouraged me through my slowest mile pace along its trails one month postpartum. It watched me rebuild my strength. It witnessed the lamplight of a new mom figuring things out. It watched me transform as an artist and bloom into a mother.

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And all the while, colors filled the sky every day while I was sweeping up cut-up grapes, listening to bath time giggles, picking stale string cheese off the carpet, or desperately trying to catch up on homework.

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The sunsets over the lake felt like personalized gifts. They made me pause my sweeping or frantic, almost-bedtime toy cleanup. Bed time would get pushed back. It made more sense to round everyone up and force them on the balcony  for some fresh air and just sit together with the waning gift of vivid colors. The scattered puzzle pieces and left out crayons could wait 10 minutes. I called it "our lake" to my 2 year old daughter who quickly adopted the phrase. 

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And then we moved away. She still asks about our lake.

I didn't realize how much a place could become part of a life until I had to leave it.

So I'm writing letters to the lake.

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Letters to the Lake is a year-long art project about memory, place, and the strange relationships we form with the places that quietly witness our lives.

Over twelve months, I'll create twelve paintings inspired by Utah Lake and the years my family spent beside it. Each month, I'm writing to the lake about something I remember.

A sunset.

A windstorm.

A season.

A version of myself that existed there.

The things that happened in front of those windows.

The things I didn't realize were important until they were over.

And I'm sending pieces of those letters out into the world.

Once a month, subscribers will receive a piece of the project in their mailbox.

A small envelope containing art, writing, and little pieces of the lake as I remember it.

Because maybe you've had a place like that, too.

A house you grew up in.

A street you don't live on anymore.

A town you couldn't wait to leave—and now think about all the time.

Somewhere that watched you become someone else.

Maybe Letters to the Lake isn't really just about Utah Lake.

Maybe it's about what happens when we leave a place but don't entirely leave it behind.