Is it Art or Mother Nature?

I live at the edge of a vast desert known as The Colorado Plateau.  The elevation of Grand Junction, my town, is about 4,700 feet.  Grand Junction sits in a valley, known as “The Grand Valley”, so-called because it was cut over a millennium by the flow of The Grand River, now known as The Colorado.  A few blocks from my home, The Colorado and The Gunnison Rivers meet up, forming a larger river that continues its path downstream towards The Gulf of Mexico: hence the name “Grand Junction”, marking the junction of two great western rivers. 

The headwaters of The Colorado River are way up in the high country on the western side of Rocky Mountain National Park.  It starts as a tiny trickle, and then picks up speed and volume as it rolls downhill. On its way down, it has carved amazing rock sculptures and canyons from the stone, all the way down through Western Colorado where I live, through Utah and Arizona.   

There is no shortage of rocks throughout The Rocky Mountains and down through The Colorado Plateau.  I have ended up taking a lot of pictures of rocks over the years. Throughout the region there are colorful rocks of various kinds, some covered with lichen and some amazing sculptural artifacts resembling creatures from other planets, or from the bottom of the deep blue sea. I’m told that at one time, this area was in fact a shallow inland sea, which parted as the mountains rose, creating a sea on both sides.  The one on the eastern side covered what is now The Great Plains states, all the way to the current Mississippi River.  On the western side, where I now live, the sea covered western Colorado, and what is currently southern Utah and possibly beyond, into what is now Arizona and New Mexico.  I’m not by any means a geologist, but there are places where fossils have been found including various sharks, whales, crustations of various kinds, and even dinosaurs, which got stuck in the mud and never got out.  At least they didn’t get out until their bones were discovered by scientists and explorers a hundred or so years ago.

The original human occupants of this area were Ute Indians and other migratory tribes.  They migrated with the seasons, traveling to warmer climes in the south in the deep of winter, and then returning to central and northern Colorado in the summer, where it is cooler.  They were able to grow corn and other grains, despite the lack of a consistent water source, however, there were some areas where they carved out irrigation canals.  Some of these can be seen in places like Mesa Verde National Park down near Durango. Before they would leave the north for the winter, they would stash their grain and seeds in “granaries”.  Most of these were either naturally occurring spots of erosion between rocks in the cliffs, or they would carve them out high up on the rocks where they were less likely to be robbed by animals or other humans.  

Before moving to this area, I don’t believe I had ever seen a petroglyph or a pictograph, but they can be found in abundance throughout The Colorado Plateau.  I’m not a climber or a particularly strong hiker, but there are many more to be seen for those people who are.

Although I personally think of the photographs I’ve taken of these rocks as “art”, some people might argue that they are nothing more than an objective and journalistic record of what is. My disagreement with that perspective has to do with the fact that I – a person – am behind the camera, focusing, determining settings, and framing the image to create a particular composition.  These are artifacts of what can be found in nature, but they are not nature herself. 

We all think we know the difference between art and nature, but how many times have we heard people refer to the beauty of nature as “God’s art” or “the art of Mother Nature?”  Clouds for instance, may make a beautiful abstract design at sunset, but they are not “art”.  They become art when someone paints them or photographs them with the intention of creating a certain composition.  That doesn’t mean they’re not naturally beautiful, even the most beautiful, because art imitates reality.   

To see a current portfolio of my nature photography, please follow these links:

www.debrapowellphotography.com

https://www.flickr.com/photos/hlake4949/with/51948832318/

Thank you for looking!  Prints are available.  Please PM me for a quote.