(#113) NORTH FACE (REFLECTION):

Edition of 3047 of which 300 are signed 1-300, 26 are signed A-Z as artist's proofs, and three sets are signed as progressives.

November 10, 1984 20 colors 17-3/8" x 24"

Client: Hap Klopp, The North Face, 999 Harrison Street, Berkeley CA 94710. Telephone (510) 527-9700 A-Z: Artist's own use Progressives: One set to The North Face

When I was in first grade, my family lived near one of the irrigation canals that provides California's Central Valley with the water that transforms it from desert to Eden. My parents were terrified that one or the other of us would dash headlong into its tree lined muddy embrace, and warned us against it at some length, but in fact we were frightened of the canal's green scummy darkness and steep sides and were not inclined to go anywhere near it.

My temptation was of falling into the sky. Early spring has days of blue sunlit airs drifting with fat white clouds, slowly changing from camels to enormous faces, castles and white transient landscapes. So huge and silent, too big to float. It was my particular pleasure to watch the sky and clouds reflected in rainpuddles, and imagine that I was looking up instead of down. Looking at skypuddles, I sometimes convinced myself that my feet were in the air, until seized by vertigo, I gasping wrenched myself away to see the ordinary world through unfamiliar eyes.