Charting Presence: Wissahickon Trails
I began running through Philadelphia’s Wissahickon Valley Park as a teenager during my parents’ painful divorce. Following its familiar paths gave me a place to be alone, breathe, and feel grounded when my home no longer felt stable. Running became another kind of home.
This series returns to the trails, roads, and family homes that shaped my relationship with the Wissahickon and my childhood. My grandfather served as president of the Friends of the Wissahickon, and several generations of my family have helped protect the park. I now understand my own attachment to this landscape as part of that longer family history.
Through these paintings and video, I bring past and present together, exploring how one landscape can hold many versions of a life and become a repository of lived experience.
Charting Presence: My Favorite Trail Runs (2026), video with sound, TRT 1:30
I have probably run this same route two hundred times, beginning when I was fourteen. It became a place where I could check in with myself and ask how I was holding up in the world.
The video brings my movement through familiar streets and trails together with reflections on my past, present, and future. This summer, we sold my mother’s house after forty years. Without it as my starting point, I will never run the route in quite the same way again. The streets and trails remain, but my path through them has changed.