Friends –
The Moab Notch is an old acquaintance and I have known her for close to 30 years now. She is the first one that I look for when we drive into town and one of the last that I see when we leave. A thirty years is a good chunk of my life that deserves some honor, but it is laughably unnoticeable to my Jurassic-aged friend.

I have celebrated her as best I can by painting her, and the trail that leads up to her, from high and low. Several times I have risked hiking the narrow trail to get to her from which a fall means sure death. I have celebrated doing so by standing on my tippy toes to be able to look back into town from the bottom of her furrow. I have watched as brave rock climbers take ages to go up her thumb and minutes to repel back down. And at the end of the day, there is nothing like watching her from town as the colorful desert sunsets color her contours.

This particular painting is done from the Noble Notch perspective of the wetland area near Mill Creek. It is part of my typical morning walk and I always savor the sight of the notch as I come out of the constructed 500 West underpass. It is dark in that corrugated metal tunnel and my friend never fails to welcome with her sunrise glow when I get through.

'Noble Notch' is a soft pastel on Wallis paper and once framed is available for a donation to a good non-profit – preferably one that protects these beautiful southeast lands of Utah.

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