Nancy Holt made drawings for several large-scale public art projects that remain unrealized and exist only on the page. She developed Solar Rings in 1992 as a proposal for Mariana Butte Golf Course in Loveland, Colorado.

The drawings show that Holt planned to site the work in relation to the east–west axis and the changing position of the sunset through the year. The proposed sculpture comprises a 16-ft. (4.9-m) structure of three connected steel rings that could be rotated by hand. Three circular fire pits were positioned in relation to the sunset at the summer and winter solstices and the equinoxes, viewed through the central axis of the large steel rings. The sculpture points both to the later work Starfire (1996) and the earlier sculpture End of the Line/West Rock (1984–85).