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Some places you find. Some places you lose. And some places, if you're lucky, you find again.
I'd been drawing at the reservoir for a while, exploring different corners of it, different vantage points. One afternoon I walked a path through the woods toward the water and came out into a cove I'd never seen. There was a row of boats along the edge, upside down, lined up like they were asleep. The water was clear and shallow near the bank, still enough to hold a perfect reflection of everything above it.
She had her pant legs rolled up and was walking out into it, slow, curious about whatever was moving below the surface. Fish, maybe a snake. She was much more interested in the critters than I was. I was watching the light on the water, the way the trees were reaching toward the surface, the way her movement made these small, quiet ripples in an otherwise still frame. I couldn't help but acknowledge the poetry of it. I set up my easel, took out my charcoal, and drew her in the water.
Then life moved on. Other spots got exciting, winter came, and the next year I was somewhere else entirely — different headspace, different body of work, different everything. The reservoir just faded out.
Seven years later, back in New York, I kept trying to remember where that place was. I knew the reservoir, knew roughly the area, but the specific cove wouldn't come back to me. I would Google around and go explore new angles regularly. One day a friend asked me if I wanted to go to Louden Cove, so he could fish. I said sure.
The parking was a little patch of dirt on the side of the road. It felt familiar when I pulled up, but I had done so many pieces around that area, I couldn’t tell you which entrance belonged to what memory. I started down the path through the woods.
And then I saw the sleeping boats.
Same row, same cove, same light on the water. As I was setting up, a guy pushed off from the bank in one of the little rowboats and started making his way out into the open water. The composition was perfect: him, the stillness, the trees framing the whole thing. I wanted to draw it. But he was going to be gone before I had a pastel in my hand, so I snapped a picture and let it go. Some moments you capture, some you just witness.
I set up in almost exactly the same spot I had 7 years before. The fisherman was already out of sight so this time there was no one in the water. Just the trees — a little fuller than I remembered them — and their reflection, reaching down toward the surface the way they always had, waiting for someone to notice.
I drew them instead. Same vantage point, same composition. Different piece entirely.
That spot is two for two. I don't know what else to tell you.
That's what this newsletter is. One place at a time. Where I have been, what I have seen, and what I was personally moved by.
Still playing home games. Turns out some of the best ones were always here waiting.
26 States down. 24 to go.
Want more from this one.. the charcoal piece, photos from the cove, more about the reservoir itself? Just reply and ask. I've got plenty.
“Reservoir Reflections
Just an Easel and a Dream is Cody's ongoing plein air pastel project: drawing in all 50 states, one landscape at a time.
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