Against o sky filled with floating globes suggesting the many worlds of our cosmos, a small landing craft takes off from a golden landing bay on a floating pavilion, playfully decked with medieval pennants. "I want the floating cities to be inviting and appealing," writes McCall, "pure fantasy dreams."

A dazzling, angular floating structure is poised over a bend in the river. The city nestled at the foot of the mountain is a strange blend of the archaic and the ultramodern.

By transcending gravity, we will be able to move the structures in which we live and work to any place we wish, and allow the natural world to return to an unspoiled state. Here, a multipart floating city travels over a wide public mall.

Whimsically titled because of the small landing craft dropping from the larger ship, Cosmic Birth is one of a trio of paintings McCall created as the result of a visit to Canyon de Chelly in northern Arizona. Says the artist: "I have the conviction that nature always is the master and that nature is so magnificent, so awesome in every aspect, that to even attempt to capture it in a painting is almost absurd. Nevertheless we all try, we artists.''

A number of McCall's floating cities incorporate elements of the southwestern desert near his home in Paradise Valley, Arizona. Here a glowing landing pod drops from a sky city.

This idyllic view of a floating environment above a tranquil harbor developed from a series of studies of a monument depicting the Crucifixion. Although the religious elements are no longer present, the work is filled with great power and spirituality.

A "floating barge" glides slowly over the desert. The natural arch in the foreground is reminiscent of the spectacular geology of Monument Valley in northeastern Arizona.

This view of the Grand Canyon began as a conventional painting, but McCall found the temptation to add streamlined touring vehicles and giant towers on the horizon irresistible.

A group of excursion craft explore a southwestern river valley in this exuberant painting in McCall's floating cities series. In the background is the floating pavilion that appears in a night scene in his future city series.

This imaginative rendering of a floating palace hovering over the arid desert - a literal "castle in the air" - expresses McCall's feeling that breakthroughs in technology will allow us to make many of our fondest fantasies come true.