6 minute read
Below Expectations
Amber Sh are’s t ongu e-in- ch eek t ak e on promot ing Nor th Carolin a’s n atural treasures
By a DDie L a Dner
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“I don’t claim to be f rom any where,” says A mber Share. T he daughter of a Nav y chief, Share and her family spent much of her childhood on the move. By the time she entered high school, Share had lived in Ita ly and five dif ferent states, and family tr ips took her a ll over the countr y. In Hawaii, she explored the lava-laced shores of the A la K a hak ai Trail; in F lor ida, she trek ked through the Everglades w ith manatee and a lligator sightings. A road tr ip across the southwester n United States brought her through the Grand Canyon, Zion Nationa l Park, Yellowstone Nationa l Park, and Badlands Nationa l Park in South Dakota.
For Share, these national park s became home. T hey were timeless, everlasting, g rounding exper iences to her. “Park s solidified a vacation in my mind,” she says.
T hose ex p er ienc es have st aye d w it h her sinc e, etche d in her m ind a nd sou l. “Even a s a n adu lt l iv ing in Wa sh ing ton, D.C ., a bust l ing c it y, I wou ld go to R o ck Cre ek Park for repr ieve,” she says. “O r I wou ld dr ive to Shena ndoa h. A ny t ime I wa nt a bre a k in my l ife, I w ind up in a park .”
Share st udied g raphic desig n and fine ar t at the Universit y of Nebrask a. A f ter g raduation, she landed a job work ing f ull-time in R aleigh at a desig n agency. But she began to crave a creative project of her ow n. “A s a professional desig ner, you don’t get to draw. I wanted a side project that was a creative outlet for me and per tained to my interest.” She thought about all those national park s she visited over her lifetime and star ted sketching them on her iPad.
Soon, she had retro illustrations of places like Joshua Tree National Park ’s deser t landscape and the Grand Canyon’s rock y ochre hor izon. But she wanted text on her illustrations, something to identif y them, something other than the park name. “Drawing the park s proved to be a nice capsule project,” says Share. “But I wanted something more unique.” She st umbled across a per plexing one-star review of a national park on Reddit that had her laughing out loud. “Save yourself some money. Boil some water at home,” said one visitor to Yellowstone — a landmark that spans three states and is home to the world ’s tallest active geyser. T hat became her aha moment. “T his review was too good not to do any thing with,” she thought. Soon, she found other strange, yet hilar ious, reviews. “T he only thing to do here is walk around the deser t,” said a g uest of Joshua Tree National Park. A nother g r iped that the Grand Canyon is just “a hole. A ver y, ver y large hole.”
T hese one-star reviews were the per fect amount of words to add to the bottom of her illustrations. “You might not notice the words at first, it’s just a beautif ul landscape,” Share says. A nd she chose the reviews strateg ically: “My focus was reviews that have to do with the exper ience of nat ure. I’m not here to make a statement about how well or not well the park s are managed. It’s more about people being under whelmed by nat ure. Most people just find it hilar ious.”
A nd indeed, they do: in December of 2019 she shared her illustrations on Instag ram with the handle @subpar park s — and they went
Graphic designer and Subpar Parks creator Amber Share at one of her go-to natural areas, William B. Umstead State Park.
viral. By spr ing of 2020, sites like Reddit, BuzzFeed, Boston Globe, and Insider found the ju xtaposition bet ween these nat ural wonders and under- enthused reviewers as hyster ical as she did.
Soon, people wanted her illustrations to hang on their walls and send to their f r iends. So she created an online shop with things like stationer y and posters. A f ter that came more illustrations around the g reat outdoors; and products like planners, too. “It’s f unny because when I star ted it didn’t occur to me that anyone would want it as a sticker or postcard,” she says.
Share lef t her f ull-time job in March of 2020 and has since focused solely on the Subpar Park s project and other creative g igs. Her book, America’s Most Extraordinar y National Parks and T heir L east Impressed Visitors, debuts this month. It holds all her most popular illustrations, plus new park s for which Share has unear thed one-star reviews. L andmark s and national monuments, like Cape Hatteras and the Blue R idge Mountains, also make an appearance. It shows her illustrations of 63 national park s with 13 additional national monuments, seashores, lakes, and national recreation areas, many of which haven’t yet appeared on her Instag ram. “It’s more than 20 0 pages with half of it, new content,” Share says.
A nd on these pages, as a nod to her resident state’s diverse and aweinspir ing state park s resting on mountains, sand dunes, and dense forests, Share illustrated a Nor th Carolina ser ies of Subpar Park s.
For ex a mple: a long t he O uter Ba n k s in Nags He ad rest s Jo ckey’s R idge St ate Park . It’s a va st rol l ing dune — t he largest dune system in t he e a ster n Un ite d St ates — w it h va nt age p oint s a s f ar a s t he eye c a n se e. But to one v isitor, it’s “sa nd but not h ing else.” At Ha ng ing R o ck St ate Park , a mount a inous reg ion k now n for it s water f a l ls a nd spr ing rho do dendrons, a not her v isitor found t hat “t re es obsc ure t he v iew.”
Share may have her tong ue fir mly planted in her cheek in her illustrations but they still ser ve as a reminder of how luck y we are to be sur rounded by Nor th Carolina's incredible park s and recreation areas. Get out and enjoy them this summer. PS
