A couple weeks ago I ran a quick loop through three museums I'd never set foot in before — the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Crystal Bridges in Bentonville; and the Nelson-Atkins in Kansas City. After fifteen years of steeping myself in the four-hundred-year tradition of landscape painting, I can usually name the hand behind a canvas from across the gallery before I've even reached the wall label.

I was driving back into Park City a few weeks ago, coming down from a road trip, when the valley opened up ahead of me from a few miles out. And there it was, plain as day: my little village, sitting inside a bowl.