I recently relocated to Chicago after being away from the area for nearly twenty years. Moving from the San Francisco Bay Area, where many residents consider San Francisco to be a Big City, have never stepped foot in Chicago. Before my departure from Oakland, a friend who visited for the first time came back and reported he was glad to be back in the land of "normal sized buildings", apparently overwheled by the likes of Big John and "The Sears".

Upon my return, I found it theraputic to re-enggage with the city through sketching. This ranged from sketches on napkins to in situ sketches in moleskines to full blown ink drawings based on a combination of maps, models, photos, and intuition. All of this work represents my attempt to create a mental model of the place I now call home.