18 SACRED PLACES tribal rituals or private ceremonies. Once they realised that I was not trying to become an expert in arcane lore or practices or attempting to prise secrets from people who wanted them to remain discreet, they often offered insightful comments and advice. When working on my projects, I often find that the problem is not that there is insufficient information but that there is too much of it. I found that there was not always an agreed-on definition of what constitutes a sacred place, to whom it is sacred, and why it is considered sacred. Everyone I spoke to had an opinion, often conflicting, about where I should go and to whom I should speak. In the end I drew up a list of places that seemed preeminent, stuck red dots on my map, and went and worked in them one by one. Sometimes I was lucky to meet priests, shamans, or acolytes who helped elucidate the sacred nature of the place. At other times I simply arrived, either alone or with my companions, set up my tent, and started work. Over the thirty-two weeks of fieldwork, I visited twenty-seven sites. Sometimes a small painting would take only a day or two, but the larger ones took up to twelve days before they were sufficiently resolved to roll up in their aluminium carrying tubes and take home to finish in my Cornish studio. My studio is also the place where I constructed the symbolic assemblages that accompany each painting. They refer to the events, encounters, observations, and experiences of my time spent on-site. In their construction they also refer stylistically to the culture—whether Native American tribal, Christian, Mormon, or New Age—that has responded to the resonance of that particular place. I should here make it clear that I did not remove any materials or artefacts from tribal lands or national or state parks. The materials I used are a reference only, donated by legal sources. The artefacts I incorporated—whether arrowheads, fetishes, or rosaries—were purchased directly from my fellow artists. I left all the many seductive potsherds and knapped flints exactly where I found them. Sometimes the reason that a place had been desig- nated sacred seemed self-evident—an extraordinary volcanic plug rising up from a flat desert (Tse´ Bit´ ai´) or the highest mountain in the range (Dook´o´ooslííd / Mount Humphreys). At other times it was more opaque. I found that because I was prepared to spend time concentrating on the place it gradually became sacred to me too. I believe that there is a deep human need to respect and care for places that are naturally beautiful, phenomenal, or extraordinary in some other way. Outstanding mountains, big trees, clear rivers (especially in desert regions), and bizarre rocks all attract our attention. We feel diminished if they are defaced or destroyed. I would argue that is why native societies revere and protect their own sacred places and imbue them with cultural significance. In the more secular culture of Western societies, national and state parks are designated and rendered sacro- sanct. It could be argued that the environmental movement is the secular means by which we express our need to honour the earth. This has been an elegiac odyssey. Sometimes I was utterly depressed by the way in which vast areas of extraordinary landscape have been overwhelmed by the onward rush of business and industry, often leaving in its wake a miserable jetsam of busted machinery, barbed wire, derelict double-wides, and scrap cars. Such an uncaring approach points to a loss of connection to the earth, fostering the illusion that we can live fulfilled and happy lives without taking nature into account. Of course this is not only a problem in the American Southwest. All over the world development is destroy- ing or degrading places of great beauty, heedless of designations by local communities that wish to retain the distinctive character of land they have cherished for generations. Once this connectedness is swept away, it is inevitably replaced with the degenerated culture of fast money and the global brand. The temptation of greater wealth carries with it the seeds of cultural impoverishment. I believe there is more to life than the merely mate- rial. Art is one of the few things that is made without needing a practical function. It is created solely to exist as itself. Nonetheless, if my work helps people consider the extraordinary nature of the world we all inhabit and to realise our joint responsibility to protect these fragile, unspoilt parts of it—these sacred places—then the occasional discomforts of my working practice will have been worthwhile. At those wonderful times—and there were many— when I was inspired by my subject, with the painting going well and the light just right, I was transported by the extraordinary beauty of the landscape and knew that I was in the right place at the right time. I could clearly see why previous generations had designated these places sacred hundreds or thousands of years ago. Tony Foster
