Mountain of Spires

by Steve Henderson

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Price

$900

Dimensions

10.000 x 10.000 inches

Title

Mountain of Spires

Artist

Steve Henderson

Medium

Painting - Oil On Panel

Description

When we see something impressive, amazing, unusual, the most natural response is to stop and stare. Our eyes drink in the sight, like a thirsty person gulping water.

Now in a large city, it is not necessarily wise to gawk, because the very action stamps one with the label of tourist, outsider, or yokel – someone who is unfamiliar with the place and its ways, and is thereby vulnerable. The proper and safe action -- as it is too often in our society -- is to remain cool, distant, unimpressed, even bored.

As time goes by, this attitude becomes one that we admire and cultivate, much to our disadvantage as human beings. Spontaneous exclamations of enthusiasm and joy are so . . . uncool.

But maybe it’s time to cultivate being more uncool, as we seek to become wiser, happier, more joyful and free. The perfect place to do this is in a wild, country landscape, a place where one can stop and gawk and stare and wonder, without worrying if a sharp observer is going to pick our pocket or grab our purse.

Such a place is The Mountain of Spires, a landscape in Zion National Park of Utah, USA, that is off the popular trail route, but very much in the midst of the landscape’s beauty. A rugged dirt road leads the hiker through sagebrush and low trees.

And ahead of us, rising to the sky, are the rugged cliffs and peaks that are so much a part of Zion’s Southwest landscape. It’s almost like being surrounded by castles, – not big, chunky monoliths of stone, but fairy tale towers, spires that reach up to the sky and catch the glint of sunlight across their ridges.

In this magical, almost surreal place, we are free to shed the heavy mantle of cool, disinterested boredom and wrap ourselves in the gossamer gauze of fascinated awe. We are free to gawk.

(A companion artwork to Mountain of Spires is On the Temple Road, also on this site.)

Featured in 36 Fine Art America groups

Uploaded

February 28th, 2020

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