Just north of Jackson, Mississippi along interstate 55, there’s a giant obelisk at the edge of the woods. My first recollections of the tower were something along the lines of “Oh yeah, like the one in D.C.” as if it made sense for the obelisk to be there. I had seen the Washington Monument on a sixth-grade field trip, but unlike the Washington Monument, the obelisk in the woods is only a disguised communications antenna. Instead of a giant, artificial tree, city officials decided to make the antenna look like an older kind of communications tower. So instead of broadcasting the supremacy of a ruler, a religion or governmental system, the hollow, veneered obelisk broadcasts invisible waves of data.

It’s nice to know we aren’t the only folks interested in towers. These paintings are the work of Rebecca Rothfus. Rebecca is a Texas-based artist who is simultaneously attracted and repelled by the towers around us, saying “the structures [are] compelling and beautiful, but I also consider them blights on the landscape.” She must not have seen the obelisk, it’s a very proud blight.