Bruce McClain recounts how this series of drawings began when he noticed a fallen leaf and recognized an elderly face in its wrinkled surface. Within that face he found an imagined life full of memories and associations that inspired a drawing. The leaf had absorbed a spring and summer of sun and rain to feed the tree, then fallen to feed the soil, a nutritious mulch for the next year of the tree. Autumn leaves marked by the weather of their seasons become a metaphor for lifetimes of experience traced in this collection of art and poetry.

In this series of 34 narratively rich images, Bruce captures varied and distinct faces of people whose histories we are called to imagine. From the foliage, their eyes emerge to address the onlooker, reflect on their past, grieve, ask expectantly, hope, endure with dignity. In some pictures, hands clutch, reach, lift, or transform into branches, a pencil, a bird’s perch. Woven into the drawings are objects and creatures that may play a part in the person’s past or signify something of the person’s character. Recurrent images of birds, roses, bells, insects, boarded-up buildings, and clocks without hands suggest a deep symbolism underlying the art.