Support: The support is a 1 x 1 twill-weave, processed, linen canvas stretched over an "American Type", double-bevel-faced, miter-cut ended, mortise-and-tenon joined, keyable softwood, commercial stretcher bar, pre-cut to the whole inch, 1 ¾" wide x ¾" thick in 16" and 30" sized lengths. The canvas is stretched with the warps in the horizontal position and tacked using blued steel tacks spaced evenly apart, approximately 3" with regularity. The canvas has 44 warp threads per inch and 50 weft (twill weave) threads per inch. Eight custom basswood keys are secured at the corners.

Ground or Support Preparation: The processed linen canvas has a commercially applied primer consisting of 2PbCO3•Pb(OH)2 and some CaCO3 in oil, characterized using x-ray fluorescence spectroscopy at 15kV, 33 and 40kV, and 28.8, 18, and 3.8 µA under full vacuum from the verso.

Design Layers: The artist has prepared her higher value whites and lighter colors so that they have a slightly stiff, cream-like consistency, which is slightly thicker than background paints and holds brush texture as a compositional and textural effect. Darker values, by contrast, were prepared with more fluid, cream consistencies and allowed to flow and level into the texture of the canvas. O'Keeffe applies paint at the margins of forms using nearly continuous, curvilinear brush strokes with the brush positioned at a low angle to the canvas, resulting in a continuous, raised ridge of paint at the edge of each form. Surrounding brushwork is generally parallel to the linear directions defined by these edges, with no underlying or subsequent brushwork moving perpendicular to the linear form. Occasionally, adjacent forms do not overlap, and the artist has chosen to allow a "holiday" of unpainted, primed canvas to be a visible detail in the composition, with graphite underdrawing residues sometimes visible. There are a few isolated spots of transferred paint from adjacent areas that occurred during the artist's painting process.

Surface Coating: Thinly varnished in the technique and appearance of conservators Caroline Keck or Felrath Hines. Hines' treatment report, December 1, 1966, indicates that paint had developed opaque blanching. It was first diminished with B-72 in xylenes, followed by Lucite 46 iso/butyl methacrylate copolymer.

Framing, Backing, and Hanging Hardware: The work is framed in a contemporary, micro-environmentally buffered, and gasketed metal-leaf "clam shell" profile frame, a reproduction of O'Keeffe's original design, created by framer/artist George Of. The glazing is Optium® tin salt-coated, UV-absorbing, static-free, non-reflective acrylic. The Optium glazing has a Volara closed-cell polyethylene gasket/pad. The frame is fitted with a laminated, Volara-gasketed backing strainer.

All media are presently secure and stable. Since the 2004 report, the number of cracks present has grown. Most of the cracks are still concentrated in the sky, with many in the bright, pale red ochre mountains at the center. These cracks were consolidated, using Aquazol, poly (2ethyl-2-oxazoline) MWT 50 and 200, in the 2014 treatment. There are isolated blanched paints visible in the dark mountain regions near the top center, which may represent di-stearate migration/blanching as a result of elevated temperatures in transit.

The work is now moderately taut, and the two extant original keys have been taped in place to prevent them from falling and becoming wedged against the canvas verso. Stretcher bar creases are slightly visible on the inside edges of the top and bottom stretcher bars.

As the artist applied stiff, matte paints, the canvas was deflected into the stretcher bars, resulting in microscopic fissures and creases in the canvas and priming layers. Over time, these fissures further evolve into intermittent, hairline cracks through the paint and as raised creases on the surface. Several areas in darker passages have been thinned by the artist, and the high threads of the canvas weave are visible in these areas.

There has been only isolated retouching at the four corners. There are also frame abrasions along all four edges of the painting face where the work historically rested against the rabbet of O'Keeffe's original frame. These are also generally expected in O'Keeffe's works from this period. The paints in these edges are also stable and secure.