Thomas Oslund is one of the leading design landscape architects in the country. Oslund has over twenty years of experience at a variety of project scales from 800-acre master planning efforts to a 5000-square foot rooftop garden. As founder and design director of Oslund and Associates, he is responsible for setting the design direction of each project. His role is very interactive to ensure that the functional, practical, and aesthetic elements of the design are achieved. His belief in the collaborative process of working closely with clients, architects, engineers, fabricators, and artists have yielded positive results and international recognition as an innovator when it comes to solving complex site design challenges. His work has been recognized by the ASLA, American Institute of Architects, and, in 1992, he was awarded the prestigious Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome.

Artist Statement: The drawing was done on my recent trip to Japan, I was struck by the beauty of how the shrine nestled in to its setting and the texture of both the structure and the surrounding landscape. The intent of the drawing was to capture the textural layers with a soft sketching pencil using the various gray scales to emphasize the subtle textures present.