Dorothea Tanning and Max Ernst found in Sedona a place they had visited in 1943 a "camera sharp place where planetary upheaval had left its signature." Sedona, the place of reddish rocks and wide open spaces was so different from the European haunts of the two lovers.

She painted this Self Portrait in 1944 before they returned to live there. Tanning remembered, "I would undertake--dare would be a truer word--to paint the unpaintable....in the studio alone with my dream I would record it like a diary entry..."

Standing before the wide reaches of northern California this week I saw new growth under swathes of burned out forest— a small sign of renewal and hope. Planetary upheaval is alas ongoing.