Creosote Base

2001, Oil on canvas, 30" × 40"

“Are they beautiful these plants and shrubs of the desert? Now just what do you mean by that word ‘beautiful’? Do you mean something of a regular form, something smooth and pretty? Are you dragging into nature some remembrances of classic art; and are you looking for the Dionysius face, the Doryphorus form, among these trees and bushes? If so the desert will not furnish you too much of beauty. But if you mean something that has a distinct character, something appropriate to its setting, something admirably fitted to a designed end, then the desert will show forth much that people nowadays are beginning to think beautiful.”
John C. Van Dyke, The Desert