Robert Reynolds, 'Meteor Crater'.

2018, oil on wood panel, glue, straw, wire, original rock from site. 

The painting was inspired by the artist’s visit to the impressive Meteor Crater near Flagstaff, in the desert of Northern Arizona. It is an areal view that depicts a blue sky on the horizon. The original rock, in the center of the crater, was donated by an Irish writer who, inspired by the sight of the painting, drove to visit the site and brought back a rock.

The crater was created about 50,000 years ago during the Pleistocene epoch when the local climate on the Colorado Plateau was much cooler and damper. The area was an open grassland dotted with woodlands inhabited by mammoths and giant ground sloths. The crater is nearly a mile across, 2.4 miles around the rim, and over 550 feet deep. The object that was excavated from the crater was a nickel-iron meteorite about 160 feet across.