Familiar Ground: Front Yard Topography consists of 20 drawings that map my front yard in Tucson, AZ where I lived for three years.  I selected and drew rocks in an effort to gain of sense of place and to better orient myself in the small world of my immediate surroundings. To consider the idea of place, I chose to literally focus my attention on the ground under my feet.  The entire collection of drawings, functioning as a personal map, is an accumulation of close studies rather than a single view from an aerial perspective. Portrait-like with unique details of selected rocks, but with blank backgrounds, the drawings denote a personal space while retaining a scientific specimen visual-quality. The colors of the tabs on the upper left corner of each page correspond to a designated area of my yard based on the cardinal directions.  For example, a green tab denotes the north region, a red tab denotes the east region and a combination such as an orange tab and a blue tab denotes the southwest region. As a group, the drawings provide a fragmented, yet concise topographical picture of where I lived.