Stairway To Red Rocks

You feel the air shift first — that particular hush right before a Colorado storm breaks, when the sandstone goes gold and the sky above it turns the color of steel.

That's the one contrast the whole painting hangs on: rock lit like it's on fire, held under a sky that's already decided against it.

This isn't the amphitheater. It's the walk in — the trail through the lower lot at Red Rocks, boulders and green grass and a path that switches back through the canyon, with the venue itself left entirely out of frame.

Imagine leaving earlier than you need to for something that matters, just to take the long way up.

Some places hold onto us more for the getting there than the arriving.

Painted on copper panel — a rare, luminous surface, where the metal beneath changes how light moves across the piece.