Susan Obrant

The Southwest, to the uninitiated, conjures sparse cacti, sweltering heat, and a visual harshness city dwellers would find unnerving.

The truth is, to wander through natural skyscrapers, eons old, dramatically carved by earth's own furies, is akin to a stroll in a lunar landscape, replete with flowering fields ...

in short ... surreal beyond words ... and breathtakingly beautiful.

The very serenity of earth's accomplishment unleashed within me wild imaginings. The throes of winds and floods, climactic shifts, torrential rains, fantastic oceans, and the endurance of a creative "Artist" looking down to examine every crevice for sculptured perfection. My very equilibrium suffered imbalance ... the vastness left no walls to lean on ... what could I do...?

Paint

And thus began the most personal series of works I have ever undertaken. The following are not the picture postcards available year round, but a record of the vistas that would not let me go.

I followed the path of ravens into the Grand Canyon beyond twilight and my vertigo was cured; I recorded a cave for hours till the ancients were pleased; I flew above the morning's fog to catch the early sun as the red peaks see it.

Each of these canvases is actually quite small. They are mementos, personal paeans to some of the grandest arenas I've ever beheld. Perhaps to load all of these feelings onto miniature replicas from the mind's eye might reflect the enormity of their impression on me.