This painting is to acknowledge the long history of indigenous peoples on the west coast, through the millennia. I know through family research that our roots are elsewhere. We are all immigrants, except for the original and enduring ‘true’ west coasters. Anywhere I walk or hike, I can’t help but wonder how very many footsteps have traced this landscape before me, back, back through time—every step as real as my own today, the steps of people who had full resourceful lives, powerful family connections and art.