Chimney Rock

For my dad's 70th birthday, we took a road trip from Minneapolis to Santa Fe, stopping at sites with family history. We spent a long day exploring Ghost Ranch, which my grandmother had spent time at many years before. This particular view struck me, the conversation between foreground and background, tree and rock formation, both slowly changing form through erosion. The challenge with this painting was playing with the composition, making adjustments to locate the dark values of shrubs and shadows in an interesting way to support the play between my two main subjects.