I am honoured to serve on the volunteer working Board of NCECA, the National Council for the Education of the Arts. We meet in person three times a year, in June at the location of the following spring’s conference. In 2025, NCECA hosts FORMATION in Salt Lake City Utah. My partner and I took some time to experience this vast corner of the world, which neither of us had seen before. Below are some of the snaps day by day of our 6 day road trip. Food for the soul for any artist!!!!
We spent some time with our dear friend Antra, whom we had met in Bali in 2011 at the Gaya Ceramics residency. She lives North of SLC, and is also a colleague on the board of NCECA. We had a tour of Utah State University’s Ceramic studio and the opportunity to hang out with wood firer extraordinaire, John Neely. The lush landscape was welcome, and unexpected freezing rain storm at the top of the “Caribbean of the Rockies” - Bear Lake. We discovered Minnetonka Caves, some 340 million year old 880-step journey into the soul of a mountain, where the bats were unusually friendly. Stunning -
[Note - you should be able to click on any photo to enlarge and see it full scale]
DAY 1 - Zion National Park, Hilsdale
After the board meetings, we picked up our Kia Kicks and headed out. Zion National Park, our first impressions after the 4.5 hour drive from SLC, was a relative mob-scene with an hour and a half wait to get in. We were troupers in the furnace of the unexpected heat dome and rode the shuttle bus packed like one would imagine the Tokyo subways. We found our zen in the numerous little “off-the-beat-and track” viewpoints and spent the whole day, 2L’s each of water each and rewarded ourselves with some of the best Mexican food I’ve ever had! The shots below with the water are actually of Salt Lake, my guy took off bird watching while we were in meetings.
DAY 2 - Bryce Canyon
We next visited Bryce Canyon, which technically really isn’t a canyon, where the sunset glow of the colours on the 240 million year old sandstone formations in the valley was like watching an animated film over a one and a half hour joyous climb filled with innumerable vistas. The next day we revisited the same sites, completely different visual canvas. This is where I started to understand the ancient rhythms of the geology - ice seeping into the sandstone in harsh winters and splintering the rock formations into “windows” and then these hoodoo like formations.
DAY 3 - Monument Valley, Mexican Hat and The Edge of Cedars State Park and Museum
As its title suggests, these sandstone formations were monumental! We took in Goose Neck State Park in the morning. Completely different geology, dark green, deep, stepped stone down to what is part of the Colorado River. We photographed ourselves on the road with iconic vistas. This is “John Wayne country”. Our non-four-wheel drive KIA Kicks got stuck in the mud of the red sands on the way out of the 17-mile scenic drive, and a Navajo worker on a large tractor came to our rescue. Words are not enough to describe our enchantment. We next motored off to the Edge of the Cedars State Park as it promised had the best and most extensive collection of Pueblo region ceramics - ANYWHERE!!! the Ute, Hopi, Navaho, and Pueblo people and their ruins, painted pots were such an inspiration. We climbed into the Kiva - the underground “pit house” of the indigenous peoples. These people lived in the area from 300AD to 1200AD, then dropped everything and migrated south. Discoveries continue and are recent as the sand still holds so much of their history.
DAY 4 - Arches National Park
We drove onto Moab where we spent two nights. First day resting and taking in the local culture, and hiking the trails of Arches National Park in the evening as the sun set. We learned that the intermittent bright green swaths of landscape were not copper as one might expect, but chlorite and illite. The next day we returned early to Arches, then headed out of the heat towards Canyonlands National Park, and ended our day with an impromptu viewing of a wall of petroglyphs - wondrous and awe-inspiring. The first of many more petroglyphs that we would see on the trip - that are not flagged for tourists as it is assumed the general public are “not that interested” - duh.
DAY 5 - Island in the Sky, Canyonlans, Goblin State Park, Little Wild Horse Slot Canyon
Promised to be 20 degrees cooler, Island in the Skye was a balmy 99F (versus the 112F we had experienced). We started at the highly recommended Goblin Valley. I love the names given to these places, they truly looked like little goblins - thousands of them. We stopped to experience a “slot canyon” Little Wild Horse, where we could trek as far in as we wanted, and return - which for us was a 1.5 hour trip in over 100F. The intimacy and joy of clambering through these narrow cliffs is impossible to relate. We left just in time before a major sandstorm came out of nowhere, and blinded all road visibility.
DAY 6 - Capital Reef National Park
We stayed in a “tiny house” and ate the best authentic Mexican food ever in this tiny town of Torrey the night before we set off on our last day. More petroglyphs, 5000 year old lava boulders strewn amongst 240 million year old sandstone and vistas were stunning. And then we headed back to civilization and very civilized, we rested and took the direct flight home to Toronto. The whole time we kept saying to each other, this is just a reconnaissance trip - we will be back! SO MUCH MORE TO SEE and experience. Beautiful country - near the “four corners” where Colorado, Arizona, Utah and New Mexico meet.
