I saw these works of art stacked almost randomly at the back of a Santa Fe art gallery, a perfect example of layers in itself. An art dealer is attracting visitors not by displaying individual works of art, but simply by presenting a variety of Western art in abundance. These layers were already in place when I saw them through a window from well outside the gallery. I only had to recognize their significance and make the most coherent image I can of the scene. I was drawn to the incongruous juxtapositions created by each layer, as well as the contrasts and linkages of scale, color and shadow. The wrought iron sculpture of the horse in the foreground layer anchors the composition in darkness, a darkness that also explodes in the feathers of the final background layer. There are two middle layers between them – a portrait of an angel on a contrasting white background, and a painting of a group of Native Americans layered between them at lower right. Each layer offers a different flavor of coloration, scale, and subject. I chose a camera position to compose these layers along a diagonal line, linking the horse’s tail, the wing of the angel, the painted face of the Indian, and the feather that flows out of the picture at upper right. Four different artists have created works that an art dealer has placed together. I have isolated them as four layers within the boundaries of my frame to express the nature of this gallery here in the quintessential city of the old American West.