The Middle of Somewhere

I have long loved Suzanne Stryk's work. This book is an invitation to know that work more deeply, to learn of its origins, its roots, and to look over her shoulder as she sketches in notebooks full of salamanders and cocoons, horseshoe crabs and turtles. What a joy to lose yourself in a world of the human and nonhuman merged, of leaves and maps, trees and text. - David Gessner, author of Quiet Desperation, Savage Delight and All the Wild That Remains The title of Stryk's new book is beautifully descriptive. She is always placing herself in the middle of an experience as she traverses the state of Virginia. In each chapter, she explores a specific subject deeply, gracefully connecting her personal meditations to natural history. As a visual artist, she examines salamanders, horseshoe crabs and other subjects through acute observation; as a writer, she pulls us into a world of endless wonder. - Mary Stewart, artist and author of Launching the Imagination: A Comprehensive Guide to Basic Design. Suzanne Stryk overlays topo maps of Virginia places she visited with her sketches and notes, along with the stories of her experiences-all of them vividly and finely drawn. The result is a kind of deep map, a rich place in the imagination as much as a geographic point. Under a mossy rock in the highlands, she uncovers a salamander, an activity that speaks to her art: a colorful creature, the joy it brings, and the love it requires unrequited. The Middle of Somewhere brings us into the patience and ardor of Stryk's artistic process and calls us to chart our own journeys of wonder and discovery. - Rick Van Noy, Sudden Spring: Stories of Adaptation in Climate-Changed South and A Natural Sense of Wonder Suzanne's art is transcendently beautiful. I love the juxtapositions of painting, found items, print, and who knows what else that she constructs. Her writing here seems to be mostly about her process, her way of seeing-a bit like her art, filled with surprising twists and turns. - Julie Zickefoose, Baby Birds: An Artist Looks into the Nest and Letters from Eden: A Year at Home, in the Woods Stryk's art asks how we connect to place. Do we act as a tourist, passing through for a snapshot and then moving on? Or do we engage deeply like a traveler, moving beyond seeing to witnessing a natural world that may be disappearing. In this way, these works are not just notes, but contemporary reliquaries housing fragments to be honored and protected. - Leah Stoddard, Independent Curator