Daniel Boone National Forest · Laurel River Lake
An artist’sAppalachianfield journal.
Plants, mushrooms, animals, color, and changing seasons recorded around Laurel River Lake in Kentucky’s Appalachian foothills.
Choose how to explore →Explore the journal
Begin with a name, color, season, or story.
Field Guide
Explore the plants, mushrooms, animals, and other life recorded here.
Browse the guide →
Color Guides
Stay close to Laurel River Lake, or widen the view across the Appalachian region.
Slideshow
Move from May through August, one photograph at a time.
Play the summer →
The Record
See how reference photographs became a field journal—and how the journal changed my art practice.
Read the story →Selected field notes
Nature is full of surprises.
The journal begins in the field: with a flash across a cove, an unfamiliar form after rain, or a color bright enough to pull me up the bank.
June 15 · Above the cove
White-Pored Chicken of the Woods
A glimpse of orange from across the feeder creek became two enormous clusters of White-Pored Chicken of the Woods—and a barefoot climb I did not question until I looked back down.
See the guide entry →
June 5 · The shale bank
Two Cumberland Azaleas
One small shrub glowed from each side of the cove. Learning their name changed two bright patches on the bank into something I would recognize and return to.
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August 1 · After rain
Mushrooms after rain
Wet leaves, brighter moss, blue mushrooms, tiny chanterelles, and a Stalked Puffball-in-Aspic rising from amber jelly made the forest floor feel almost inexhaustible.
See the guide entry →