Despite our temporary confinement, we can still celebrate travel. These quotidian posts are shared as messages of hope, that when this crisis ends, we will discover outdoors, wonders we had taken for granted, drawing strength, wisdom and compassion from deeper engagements with nature.

Looking North from Below the Connecting Railway Bridge.Schuylkill River Sketchbook.

Exploring the banks of the Schuylkill River in 2018, between the mouth of Wissahickon Creek and Fairmount Water-Works, I filled a sketchbook with journal-paintings. Later that year these would become a limited-edition suite of prints, and the centerpiece of the installation O.T.W. On the River, at Independence Seaport Museum in Philadelphia. The installation also included works by living artists Patrick Connors, Tom Judd, Stacy Levy, Deirdre Murphy, Jacob Rivkin and Joseph Sweeney and historic artists Edmund Darch Lewis, Johann Georg Martini and Granville Perkins.

LOOKING NORTH FROM BELOW THE CONNECTING RAILWAY BRIDGE
Surrounding this pastoral setting is a twenty-first-century city and a palimpsest of human mobility. For thousands of years prior to the arrival of Europeans, the Schuylkill River was a major thoroughfare for Native Americans. From 1815 to 1931 a series of locks and canals linked Pennsylvania coal regions with Allentown, Reading, Phoenixville, and Philadelphia. Footpaths, motorways, and railroads border both banks of the river. The Schuylkill is crossed by ten bridges between Fairmount and East Falls.
I began this painting on a rainy day, facing northwest, sheltered by one of the eastern arches of the Pennsylvania Railroad Connecting Bridge. Kelly Drive is at the right. A paved bike trail runs beside it, separated from traffic by grassy margins. Next to it, a worn dirt track follows the crest of a bank that descends to the river. Hidden behind the wooded western bank at the left is Martin Luther King Jr. Drive. Just beyond that, the roaring din of the Schuylkill Expressway restrains us from pastoral reverie. On the far shore, ahead is the wide metal ramp and dock operated by the Philadelphia Dragon Boat Association. On the water in the middle distance, a single scull sits where Eakins painted himself, pulling away from Max Schmitt.