When I first discovered Lauren’s work, I was obsessing over her creation process of the “Linn Cove Viaduct” reduction-method print. I fell in love. I grew up pretty low income, and our family vacations were always humble trips to the Western North Carolina mountains. You wouldn’t know those vacations were humble by the look on my face. I was always enraptured by the Blue Ridge Parkway, the blue gradient horizon lines that seemed to stretch into forever, and the creatures that inhabited the rolling hills and forests. The mountains are a place of peace, restoration, adventure, faith, and self-discovery for me. That feeling carried over into my relationship with my now-husband, whose love of the mountains is equal to mine. When we moved into our first home, I saved the wall space above our living room mantle for something special. I grew up to work in the arts, directing galleries and representing artists of all disciplines, but I’ve always had a soft spot for printmaking. The intimacy and the relenquishing of control – there is a divine faithfulness in the letting go and the unfolding of the final image. Later, when I found Lauren’s “Table Rock” print on the White Crowe website, I knew that it and “Linn Cove Viaduct” needed to be twin spirits above my mantle… they embody the light and the dark, the ins and the outs, and the ebb and flow of life, and everything in between that would be a part of our sweet little home together (a milltown bungalow built in 1930, with so much life and history its own). I have a husband who pays attention, and so unexpectedly, on Christmas morning a couple of years ago, I unwrapped a cardboard tube. Inside it was a twin set – two prints, the prints I loved and wanted – the sweetest gift. I was ELATED. We had them specialty framed, and they live happily in unison together above our mantle, where I knew they always belonged. Thank you, Lauren! Thank you for giving visual life to a feeling and a memory that so many of us know, love, and cherish. You are MAGIC.