I’m Margaret C. King and I’m an artist and writer based in Mancos, Colorado.

Art has been part of my life since I can remember. I've been drawing and painting since I could walk, and growing up in Salt Lake City, my parents took my sister and me to the mountains and deserts of Utah as often as they could. I remember squeezing through slot canyons at six years old, hiking to alpine peaks as a kid. That foundation — valuing time spent moving through wild places — has shaped everything about how I see.

I went to film school in Southern California, where I learned to see imagery with a more calculated and deliberate eye. Filmmaking taught me that there's a story behind every image. I carry that into every painting.

After years behind a camera, I've come back to painting. I paint the desert and alpine landscapes I've spent my life moving through — climbing, hiking, backpacking, running trails. My work is in watercolor and oils, and I tend to paint not the grand sweeping vistas but the things you actually notice when you're in a place. A sandstone wall. A gnarled old juniper. A pool of water caught in slickrock.

The closer you look at these landscapes, the more there is to see. A cliff face that first just makes you feel small starts to reveal desert varnish streaks, compression layers, cracks, lichen, plants growing straight out of the rock. That's what I'm trying to capture — the worlds within worlds that open up through time and attention.

I work from field studies and photographs made on location, then develop larger pieces in my studio. The paintings are big, because the detail deserves space to breathe.

Observed Ground is also home to my writing — essays about these places, the process of making art in them, and what it means to really look at something.

Original paintings and prints are available. Commissions are welcome. I'd love to hear from you