The storms in California during the winter of 2022-2023 created drama. Living in isolated Half Moon Bay, cut off from the larger world of the Peninsula multiple times by mudslides and downed trees, made me turn inward. The environment became larger and more important. I felt the way nature reacted to the deluge after a long period of drought, the streams swelling, the dry hills taking in the rain. One afternoon light coming into my front window caught me; as another storm approached the skies held a riot of color, swirling clouds driven by winds. A lone small bird was perched on a thin, bending, bare tree next door, almost in defiance of the darkening heavens. Hope personified, the small became large.
White sea glass is arched in a halo around the bird, in the manner of a saint in a medieval work.