This piece is titled "Orogenesis" – a geological term for the processes that combine to build up mountains. I like the idea that a mountain is the aggregate of myriad continuous processes--erosion and upheaval, building up and breaking down–-but all we see is the deceptively static result. I grew up in the mountains and I've always found that the closer you look at them the more apparent these processes become and they are beautiful. My piece attempts to mimic this affect of competing processes producing a monumental result. 

We're all undergoing upheaval and erosion, at times tectonic collisions and volcanic eruptions. Each with goals of being something better, something taller, something more solid that that which we currently are. I hope we can understand these processes at work in the world around us, in others, and in ourselves in order that we may view one another more complexly--perhaps with the awe that accompanies the view of a mountain. 

Nathan Thatcher - 02/06/17