Darcie Peet

There’s nothing quite like Monument Valley in the winter. After deciding at the spur of the moment to make the journey there, we luckily got the very last room over New Years. What a unique and spiritual experience we had with a private Navajo guide telling us all sorts of stories, traditions and legends as he patiently drove us through the valley, stopping so very often to let us get out and photograph and sense our almost alien surroundings. The valley is eerily quiet at dawn as the snow absorbs what little sound might be around. Azure blue and lavender shadows contrast against the red rock, winter shrubs and the emerging, dazzling light of dawn creeping in… a visual potpourri while the air couldn’t be more crisp and frosty. It’s a place where all one’s senses are alive! The painting depicts the Yei Bi Chei monuments, or “Navajo spiritual gods” and viewed as a formation of dancers emerging from a hogan. There is a Yei Bi Chei dance that is performed for healing purposes in a 9-day ritual called the Night Way Ceremony. This was an unforgettable mood that had to be captured on canvas! For Sale. $6200. Available at Settlers West Gallery, Great American West Show, Nov 22, 2025, 6420 N. Campbell Ave. Tucson, AZ 85718, 520-299-2607 www.settlerswest.com www.darciepeet.com

Far more than a September dusting of snow already blankets peaks of the Canadian Rockies along the Icefields Parkway. Sensing winter is right around the corner, a flock of geese flying low just above the evergreens, begins its journey south, while an early, new moon begins to rise. For Sale. $2900. Available at Settlers West Gallery, Great American West Show, Nov 22, 2025, 6420 N. Campbell Ave. Tucson, AZ 85718, 520-299-2607 www.settlerswest.com www.darciepeet.com

In Tucson, we have striking sunsets in both directions, west and east as the sinking sun in the west sets mountains and clouds aglow in the east. We have 360-degree sunsets, and this was one of those days. At the end of my work day I often cycle along the base of these mountains for quiet, fresh air, sunshine and to seek ideas for composition, color, value and sky character. Today I was not disappointed as a spring storm was dissipating, leaving a smattering of sunlit and shadowed clouds. An early moon was breaking through a few cloud wisps above the muted mountains trimmed with a last breath of color. Across a desert hillside below, the vivid orange spikes of one of spring’s longest blooming, desert wildflowers, Globe Mallow, echoed the final remnants of light on the tips of the Catalina Mountains and Pusch Ridge outside of Tucson, AZ. For Sale. $ 3900. Available at Settlers West Gallery, Great American West Show, Nov 22, 2025, 6420 N. Campbell Ave. Tucson, AZ 85718, 520-299-2607 www.settlerswest.com www.darciepeet.com

Early dawn shadows are already getting longer as fall is right around the corner. The mountains right outside Rocky Mountain National Park edging McGregor Ranch still hover in shadow as the first rays of sun bedazzle this ranch meadow swept with daisies and a solitary lost, magenta thistle. For sale. $3300. Available at the Mountain Oyster Club Western Art Show opening Nov. 23. 6400 E El Dorado Circle Suite 100C, Tucson AZ. 520-623-3417, www.mountainoysterclub.com www.darciepeet.com

A late afternoon and sundown hike in Saguaro National Park West ended with this huge sphere of an eye-squinting and startling sun setting behind the Tucson Mountains. Its dramatic radiance set off all the shapes of the desert, especially the forest of saguaros but also scattered prickly pear and blooming brittle bush. For sale. $3900. Available at K Newby Gallery & Sculpture Garden, 15 Tubac Rd., Tubac, AZ 85646-4217, 520-398-9662, Toll free: 888-398-9662, www.newbygallery.com/artist/darcie-peet/ www.darciepeet.com