The Anthropology of Turquoise - Reflections on Desert, Sea, Ston torrent

"Of all the things I wondered about on this land, I wondered the hardest about the seduction of certain geographies that feel like home--not by story or blood but merely by their forms and colors. How our perceptions are our only internal map of the world, how there are places that claim you and places that warn you away. How you can fall in love with the light.
--Ellen Meloy"


Ellen Meloy, "The Anthropology of Turquoise: Reflections on Desert, Sea, Stone, and Sky"
English | 2003-07-08 | ISBN: 0375708138 | 336 pages | EPUB, MOBI | 2.0 mb + 0.7 mb

In this invigorating mix of natural history and adventure, artist-naturalist Ellen Meloy uses turquoise—the color and the gem—to 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.