We are so lucky to have the Bay Area Ridge Trail. Over the past 7 years I've admired a particular stand of trees on a section of the trail in Tilden Park. On a fogless afternoon last summer, I was struck by the stark beauty of one Monterey Pine that had given itself over to insects and fungus. The next day, on the way to a meeting in San Francisco, I glimpsed a scene down Stevenson Alley that was humming the same tune: similar color palette, quality of light and vertical format. In my free time, I started taking bigger and bigger paper up the hill to explore the scene in charcoal. 
I've always been interested in drawing scenes that are too big to take in with a single shot. On flat paper, how does one enact a truce between the geometry of perspective and 3D input from the senses? This interest has sustained my career as a visual storyteller and explorer of volumetric scenes. For the rest of this month, 5 charcoal drawings are in the gallery of UC Berkeley Extension (just a block away from Stevenson Alley). Take a look if you have a chance and say hello. I'll be there every Thursday in February from 4-6:15pm.