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Inner strength: it's a capacity we all posses, yet we may only take its full measure in times of difficulty or danger. In Distant Thunder, the newest art acquisition at the UNM Cancer Center, sculptor Star Liana York makes this elusive quality exquisitely real in the face and figure of an Apache woman preparing to protect herself and her child from harm. "The piece is about drawing on your inner strength to meet life's challenges," says York.  "I believe tapping into this strength is just as important as any other therapy when facing a life-threatening illness like cancer."

Star created this piece as a tribute to the spirit of the Cancer Center's patients, families and providers, serving at once as homage and inspiration. The sculpture came to the UNM Cancer Center thanks to the exceptional generosity of its previous owner, Paul and Lucy Roth of Florida (no relation to UNM's Dr. Paul Roth), who donated the piece last fall. The sculpture is installed in a specially landscaped setting at the Center's main entrance.

The quiet intensity of Distant Thunder reflects York's extraordinary skill and distinctive artistic vision that seeks the universal through the particular. "It's by realizing our uniqueness that we begin to connect to everything around us," says York, who lives with her husband in "Georgia O'Keefe country," near Abiquiu. Named a leading artist of the Southwest by Southwest Art Magazine by galleries across the region, York focuses her work on the area's people and animals, especially horses - she was the artist comissioned to create the horse forms for The Trail of Painted Ponies exhibit. York moved to New Mexico from Maryland in 1985 not so much for the landscape or culture, she admits, as for access to a wonderful foundry. "But what I've found here is an incredible, unending source of inspiriation," she says. "I'm still discovering so many things."