TWELVE YEARS AGO, I was knee-deep in a dumpster digging for groceries. Inspired by legends like Yvon Chouinard, who famously lived on cat food for a summer, my friends and I considered bruised apples and stale bread to be a blessing that allowed us to extend our climbing trips from weeks into months.
Artist and climber Emilie Lee recently held an exhibition of her art journals for the premier opening of the Rostel Gallery in Dunsmuir, CA. Some of her rich collages were first published in Issue 6 (Spring 2004) as “The Dumpster Diaries,” a colorful slice of Lee’s climbing adventures and the “dirtbag culture.” In Lee’s words: “These journals are an intimate portrait of my life, which not only captures a pivotal era in my development as an artist, but also a passing season which has shaped a generation of climbers.”
