The Anthropology of Turquoise Reflections on Desert, Sea, Stone, and Sky

In this invigorating mix of natural history and adventure, artist-naturalist Ellen Meloy uses turquoisethe color and the gemto probe deeper into our profound human attachment to landscape. From the Sierra Nevada, the Mojave Desert, the Yucatan Peninsula, and the Bahamas to her home ground on the high plateaus and deep canyons of the Southwest, we journey with Meloy through vistas of both great beauty and great desecration. Her keen vision makes us look anew at ancestral mountains, turquoise seas, and even motel swimming pools. She introduces us to Navajo "velvet grandmothers" whose attire and aesthetics absorb the vivid palette of their homeland, as well as to Persians who consider turquoise the life-saving equivalent of a bullet-proof vest. Throughout, Meloy invites us to appreciate along with her the endless surprises in all of life and celebrates the seduction to be found in our visual surroundings. From the Trade Paperback edition.

Ellen Meloy received a Whiting Foundation Award in 1997. Her book Raven’s Exile: A Season on the Green River won a 1995 Western Writers of America Spur Award for contemporary nonfiction. She is also the author of The Last Cheater’s Waltz: Beauty and Violence in the Desert Southwest. Her essays have appeared in Orion and Northern Lights, among other publications, and have been widely anthologized. She lives in southern Utah.