When I was going through a box of love letters from the year we courted while stationed 1200 miles apart (my husband USCG in NYC and myself USN in Memphis) I collated the letters with some of our old photographs. The theme for this page is the many countries and states that we've visited from our introduction in Indianapolis in 1978 to the present. I used stacked journaling to write the names of the key states and countries where we have lived or traveled to together. The background is one letter that Mike wrote me on the backside of a print of the USCG icebreaker cutter that he had been stationed on just prior to when we met. I kept thinking how stunning it was (is) the many places that we have lived and traveled...something that we could not and did not anticipate when we met in 1978. I was in Mexico with limited art supplies when I did this reflection. I had used clear gesso on the photos so that I could work over the images, but the clear gesso wasn't quite as "clear" as I had expected and it make the pictures look muddy. Upon return home I used lacquer thinner to remove the clear gesso from the photos. I removed some of the words but it also brightened the page which was my intent.
