Alone? Witness

The Appalachian mountains are old, and with age comes countless stories detailing the wilds we cherish today. I myself have spent a lot of time in these woods, searching for a good view of the stars for an eclipse, my family’s graves, or a beautiful waterfall far away from cell service. Several people that I’ve hiked those hollers with have told me how unsettling it can be, to feel watched by the trees. For others, it’s a comfort to know that the very land will hold memory of us, as it has for plenty of those who have passed through before us. Either way, the stories that escape Appalachia can contradict one another; did the mountains take them? Or did they protect? This gouache diptych on black paper asks when faced with an Appalachian ghost story, are you the unsettled? Or the comforted?