My connection to Nick Robbins reaches back through three generations of his family. His grandmother was my high school English teacher, I taught his mother in swimming lessons, and years later, I remember seeing Nick as a little boy playing on the beach along Lake Huron. Although I did not know him personally, his family lived two doors down from my parents, and our lives were quietly linked by the same hometown.
Nick went on to earn his engineering degree from the University of Michigan and now works at SpaceX alongside his brother, Andrew. The two are not only brothers but best friends.
I placed Lake Huron behind Nick in this acrylic portrait because it is part of both of our beginnings. The water connects the accomplished man he is today with the little boy I once glimpsed on its shore—and with the place we both still call home.