land of sun and stone

Whether in spite of or because of growing up in a dense, forested landscape, I find a sense of freedom in open terrain and big skies of the American Southwest. There are trees here, too—cottonwoods along the rivers; spruce, fir and aspens in the mountains; and pions and scrub juniper across the plains—yet what one notices in this landscape is the stone, the lay of the land and the unique forms that rise up from that land. Mesas, monadnocks, dunes, buttes and badlands abound.