Each October, I pick one day—one perfect day, the sun bronzing the woods and the air beginning to crisp at the edges—and sally forth to scoop up an armload of free art supplies, generously shed by maples, gingkos, hickories, oaks, and aspens, and strewn in random arrangements by the wind. I gather the leaves—the ones that still retain a bit of moisture, because the more sere they are the more prone they will be to crumble as you ink and press them—and take them into my studio. There, I will spend the morning, and sometimes the entire day, transforming them into fossils—emblems of ephemeral, once-green foliage, outlasting the autumn in which they fluttered and fell as images printed on paper.