21 SACRED PLACES BY THE NUMBERS Four states: Utah, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico Four years: 2009 to 2012 Thirty-two weeks Six trips Thirty-four paintings Twenty-seven painting sites in twenty-one locations: Angels Landing, Zion National Park, Utah Bell Rock, Arizona Cabezon Peak, New Mexico Canyon de Chelly National Monument, Arizona Cathedral Rock, Arizona Chaco Canyon, New Mexico Monastery of Christ in the Desert, New Mexico Comb Ridge / Emigrant Trail, Utah Havasu Falls, Arizona Long House, Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado Mitten Buttes, Monument Valley, Arizona Mount Blanca (Blanca Peak), Colorado Mount Hesperus (Hesperus Mountain), Colorado Mount Humpheys, San Francisco Peaks, Arizona Mount Taylor, New Mexico Muley Point, Goosenecks State Park, Utah San Juan River, Utah Shiprock, New Mexico Sleeping Ute, Colorado Spider Rock, Arizona Valley of the Gods, Utah A “sacred” place is one with a deep connection to a religious or spiritual group. While working on Sacred Places: Watercolour Diaries from the American Southwest, Tony Foster traveled throughout the Four Corners region of the southwestern United States (the area where Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah meet) to experience and document some of its remote and venerated locales. Foster started this journey as a search for greater meaning. Throughout time, humankind has pursued this quest, and he selected the Southwest because of its rich cross-fertilization of cultures and faiths. His experiences in the region during his travels shaped his understanding of the people who live there and their ties to the land. Created between 2009 and 2012, Sacred Places not only depicts the beauty of the region’s natural landscape but also attempts to repre- sent the deep spiritual connections of its inhabitants. The region is the cultural homeland to the Navajo, Ute, Havasupai, Paiute, Pueblo, Hopi, and Zuni tribes. Members of the Catholic and Mormon faiths arrived there in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In the late twentieth century, New Age adherents began pilgrimages to the energy vortexes around Sedona, Arizona. Sacred Places honors these sites and serves as a powerful appeal for their protection. Sacred Places WATERCOLOUR DIARIES FROM THE AMERICAN SOUTHWEST
