Sophie Throop

I took this photo while waiting for a train from Madrid to Toledo, where I stayed in solitude for two months last summer. I organized the trip to reflect and plan for my future as a recent graduate while fueling my sense of exploration and engaging my long-standing interest in Spanish and Catalan history and culture, which had not yet been satiated by studying abroad.

My stay in Madrid and Toledo coincided with a series of endings, including my grandfather's sudden passing. Grieving, I wondered if there was anything around me that could remain constant, irrespective of time. The closest thing I found was the image of the mountain, whose dark silhouette has marked my passage through several phases of life: childhood and adolescence at my grandparents' Adirondack cabin, young adulthood in Williams' Purple Valley, and, more recently, backpacking forays into Vermont and New Hampshire.

Look is an experiment with different mediums, combining linoleum block printing with acrylic and pastels.

I occasionally shared scraps of meat and fish with a neighborhood cat while in Madrid. He was well cared for by the inhabitants of Las Rozas and would wait outside the grocery store most afternoons. Before I left, he let me take his picture.

A grave warning: many snails are opportunistic carnivores.