In July of 2025, I spent a week as an Artist in Residence at Connecticut Audubon's Edwin Way Teale 168 acre Sanctuary in Hampton, CT. Edwin Way Teale was a Pulitzer Prize winning 20th century author and photographer of natural history books, and he and his wife Nellie, also a naturalist, bought the farm in 1959 to put themselves in a quiet place of natural beauty.

 

My dates coincided with National Moth Week, and my original plan was to focus on the moths I found there. On the evening of my arrival, Sarah Heminway, the director of CT Audubon met with me and left me with the words, "Allow the place to speak to you." I took her advice. I spent morning, day, and night wandering through the miles of trails, taking pictures of everything that "spoke to me". 

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The 94 pages in this book comprise a collection of photos and notes from that week. There is something about this place that is beyond description. In speaking with others who are familiar with it, I learned I'm not alone in my inability to define what that special quality is. Dare I say magical..?

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To be honest, since this book focuses on a specific place, at a specific time, by a specific person, it might not be of interest to a wide range of people. But, as a writer and photographer, I needed a way to share it with the few people who might relate to the experience in being there. And putting this together was a way of personally extending that experience, which lingered weeks after my return home.