Part of the Saddlehorn Series, Intention is based on a photograph I took at the base of the Saddlehorn Formation in the Colorado National Monument. The formation juts out of the relatively flat landscape at the top of the Monument, looming over a group of spectacular canyons near the park's visitor center. Its red sandstones, like those in Arches National Park, were once part of a vast sandy desert. The incomprehensible timespans of geologic history, with their cycles and cataclysms, fascinate me as much as the daily and seasonal play of light and shadow across the faces of the weathered cliffs.

I've been taking pictures since I was a child and started using acrylics when I was in college. They dried fast and I had to carry canvases to and from school on three buses. Each medium has its own advantages and its own effects. This painting and the photo that inspired it are different. Each has its own effect and had its own meaning for me.