Trina Van Schyndel

In “Walks with Sammy” I decided to use an edited photo of my dog Sammy and I printed on regular printer paper, which I glued to a piece of thicker art paper. Then around this image, I used a regular pencil and colored pencils to sketch various scenes of where he and I have taken walks since moving to California, from the farms outside Davis, to the dog park in Davis, to the San Francisco Bay Delta watershed, to the East Bay in the shadow of Mount Tam.

In response to this year’s theme, I was inspired to think and create around what might be considered mundane rituals in my life, which nonetheless contribute to feelings of wellness and refreshing my spirit. Something that immediately jumped to mind was walking with my dog, Sammy. He’s a 10 year old poodle mix who found his way as a stray in rural Indiana to a shelter in Michigan, where he became part of my family (or we became his pack). Since then he has lived with me in Wisconsin and now California. And our daily walks are something that I would consider a mundane ritual of renewal.