The first thing I remember is the quiet.

The kayak rocked gently beneath me as I drifted into the narrow channel of Kenai Fjords, the world wrapped in a soft gray veil of mist. The only sounds were the drip of water from my paddle and the distant, hollow echo of waves touching stone. The mountains rose like sleeping giants on either side, their dark flanks disappearing into low clouds, and the sea below glowed a deep turquoise that felt almost otherworldly.

Then the water changed.

A smooth ripple spread across the glassy surface, a subtle shiver that broke the stillness long before I saw what caused it. I held my breath. From the depths, two dark shapes began to rise—sleek, powerful, and impossibly graceful. The orcas surfaced together in a slow, deliberate arc, black and white bodies cutting through the mist like living calligraphy. A soft exhale, a plume of breath, and for a moment it felt as if time had narrowed to this single meeting between us.

They were close enough that I could see the texture of their skin, the way light slipped along their backs and turned the water around them into liquid silver. Behind them, rock faces and evergreen-clad cliffs framed the scene, ancient and unmoving, as if the land itself were watching these travelers pass through. In that quiet pocket of the world, ocean, stone, sky, and whale seemed to breathe in unison.

“Orca Mist” is my attempt to hold onto that fleeting encounter—the calm before their dive, the hush of the fjords, the way immense power can move through the world with such effortless grace. This painting is a window back to that morning in Alaska, when I sat in a small kayak, dwarfed by mountains and sea, watching these ocean wanderers glide along their endless migration.