Buckle up, its a long one… (Not bad, just long) 

A collection of memories and stories, laughter and light. Pages full of where you sat and who you met. And yes, the drawings are made up of scribbles and wonky lines. And yes, the colors blend in an unfavorable manner and the pencil smudges in lines across the page. To the eye of a stranger they are idle sketches, quite possibly a collection of nothingness. A graphite mountain stretches a small amount of the papers space, labeled “Mountains at Sunset” and a little frog who looks, mushy?? What could they mean to anyone? Each infantile sketch ignites a memory that would otherwise fade.

Sonoita. Historically, the word originates from the O’odham language and translates to “spring field”— an ironic assessment, seeing as none of us witnessed a drop of fresh water during our five-day excursion. 

We’re sitting across the kitchen island sketching each other’s portraits. It's 1:37 a.m. This is the first time I've had my portrait drawn. I’ve had a lot of firsts this past week.

Our second week in Arizona went by really fast. We spent almost every night sitting around the dining room table working on our Art History book project and painting almost everyday.

Going with European (Southwest) Art program has been the best decision of my entire Proctor career so far. Ten of us, Beth, Caroline, Dave, Jules, Jen, Maeve, Maxx, Stella, Toby, and I, all live in a beautiful house where the magnificent landscape is right on our doorsteps.

This last week of the European/Southwest art classroom has been bitter sweet. We kicked off the week by going to Santa Fe, New Mexico, knowing that once the trip ended we would all be going home, but that did not stop us from having fun.

As I reflect on this week I instead reflect on the whole experience here in Arizona. This past week in our town Casa Grande, has been chock-full of lasts. When we returned home from Sedona awhile back, it hit all of us that soon we would be leaving our sweet home.

This week was spent in Sedona, AZ  and although we have had great previous excursions while in Arizona, this one was by far our favorite.