Homesick

This morning, I idly clicked on a RadioWest podcast because I saw it was about Doug Snow, an artist I admire, an artist who has captured the landscapes of Southern Utah better than anyone I've seen. As the interview was introduced, Doug Fabrizio mentioned that it was a rebroadcast of a 2004 interview and that Douglas Snow had died. Nothing could have made me sadder. Or more homesick.

When I was twenty, my dad took me on a backpacking trip to the Grand Canyon. Climbing deep into the canyon, watching layers of rock overlapping each other to seemingly endless depths along the horizon, I fell absolutely in love with the canyon country. These places became, and will always be, home for me. There was something astounding in that landscape--the deep sky of stars I felt I could slide right into against the folds of walls and canyons.

There is something ineffable about that landscape. It is hard to capture in words and images and no matter how many times you find yourself in in, it is always surprising. For me, Doug Snow is the only artist whose really come close to conveying the truth of these landscapes I love. In his 2004 interview, he talked about how he looked for honesty in art, for perspectives that move beyond what he already knows. He commented that he found much of the art of the red rock country "reduced [the landscape] to a series of formulas." This is what I like about Snow, that his paintings of the red rock country move far beyond the confines of the representational landscape and yet they always elicit the emotion and the essence of the landscape. His paintings startle and move me in the same way the landscape does.

This is something Snow wrote in a journal, a sentiment that was included in his eulogy:

"To be in this country; to live in it much of your life; to understand its geology, its history, to see it in all its seasons, and still, ultimately, to know nothing that can summarize it. All you can do is have faith in the strength of the experience, paint, 'not knowing,' but with conviction in the significance of those feelings."

I have so many projects that involve trying to characterize red rock landscapes, complicated stories about my family and my life. It's such a challenge. And in Snow's comments, I find good advice and comfort. There is nothing that can summarize that landscape. But I can have faith in the strength of my experiences.