Where Leaves Remember is an ongoing body of work presented as a sketchbook that explores the relationship between nature, memory, and transformation. Each page functions as both surface and site—a place where recollection accumulates, shifts, and reconfigures over time. Rooted in the premise that leaves, like people, retain evidence of what has passed, the project explores how memory operates as a layered and evolving process. Through drawings, photographs, and text fragments, the work considers how marks and materials record the interplay between permanence and loss. The sketchbook resists the notion of a fixed archive, instead positioning itself as an open system of observation and reflection. Where Leaves Remember examines how natural cycles of decay and renewal parallel the ways in which human memory is continually rehabilitating through time and experience.

About the Artist

Rebecca Sexton Larson has always considered art a fundamental part of her life. As an only child in a military family, her frequent relocations made art a constant refuge. Fortunately, her father’s decision to extend their stay in one place allowed her to pursue art studies in Washington, D.C., during high school.

In Tampa, she earned a Fine Arts degree in painting from the University of South Florida, along with a degree in Mass Communications focused on photojournalism. While her father hoped she would choose a more traditional career, Rebecca followed her passion for art and photography. After graduating, she worked as a photographer for the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office and as a medical photographer at H. Lee Moffit Cancer Center. Eventually, she became a full-time artist, specializing in large, hand painted black-and-white pinhole photographs.

Her work has received significant recognition, including Florida Individual Artist Fellowships in 1998, 2002, and 2008, and an Artist Enhancement Grant from the State of Florida in 2006. In 2005, she served as the City of Tampa’s Photographer Laureate, documenting the city through the unique lens of a pinhole camera.

Her photographs are in numerous collections throughout the country, including Polaroid; Progressive Corporate Art; Graham Nash (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young); Ashley Gibson Barnett Museum of Art (Lakeland); Cassilhaus (Durham, NC); Museum of Fine Arts (St. Petersburg); the Tampa Museum of Art (Tampa); Historical Museum (Santa Fe); and Candela Gallery (Richmond, VA). Many of her one-of-a-kind works are in private collections.

Photographer | Sextonlarson