Amargosa Valley

Let's Talk About Hot Days.

This is looking southwest across Amargosa Valley into Death Valley, Nevada side. The high point on the most distant mountain, where it intersects the midground mountain, is Telescope Peak, the highest mountain in the park. The temperature on my dashboard was 109 as I pulled my truck off the asphalt and onto the dirt that day. I set up my easel and painted a small oil field sketch from which this print has sprung. The only sign of active life was from a few brave, black ants investigating my turpentine-soaked rags, and a family in a motor home honking delightfully from their comfy home away from home, jolting me out of my shoes. My water tasted as if I were drinking hot bathwater, yet I must have poured down a gallon of the stuff. It was miserable! A year later I passed the same spot and couldn't see what had inspired me a year earlier. It wasn't as hot, the sun wasn't quite as low in the western sky, and the intersection of Telescope Peak with the closer mountain came and went quicker than a CCR guitar lick filling my air-conditioned truck. I felt a small sense of achievement, having the sketch in my archive of landscape references. Misery can pay. This is how it goes out there. As an artist, when you see it, you get it. Thinking you can go back and get it later, well, that might work for army ants but rarely for temperamental, fleeting art ideas. If I had not stopped that day when I saw the idea, this print would not – could not – exist.

Unlike most "prints" available today, this is a unique piece of art created by hand, from the freehand drawing and the carving of the blocks of wood for each color, to the meticulous inking of the blocks before pressing them onto each sheet of cotton, acid-free paper (Stonehenge, made in America by Legion Paper and prized by printmakers for its permanent qualities). Amargosa Valley is made from eight blocks.

It includes custom conservation framing under glass, all done by Craig, and it's ready to ship within 24 hours.

Edition of 100

Image size: 12" x 16" with generous margin

Frame: 23" w x 19 5/8" h