Continental Divide expedition
Portable home
Years ago, an article in Field and Stream magazine was the catalyst for a profound influence on my life. The article was about good fishing at a remote lake in the high Sierras. It inspired me to get outfitted for backpacking and to find that lake. I found it. The fishing was good enough, but something else happened. Laying in my new down sleeping bag, stargazing, and watching a slivered moon rise above the silhouetted escarpment caused a deep stirring within me. I was quite young and it was the first time I was struck with a powerful sense of awe inspired by nature.
I was overwhelmed by an intensity of solitude that was entirely new. And there were questions roaming about in my head worthy of a lifetime for finding satisfying answers.
In the Wind River Mountains
I became a devotee of the backpack and wilderness. The highlight of this addiction was hiking the Continental Divide trail with a friend of like inclinations. The hike was a serious expedition—seven months of trail from the Mexico border to the Canadian border, with total exposure to the beauty and ruggedness of the Rocky Mountains.
Fishing in downtown Browning, MT
A fondness for water, trout, and fly fishing has paralleled this adventurous appetite. And with the advancing years wading a trout stream and fly fishing has been the more enduring activity — it is far less strenuous than humping a heavy pack over high mountain passes!
This history of discovery and exploration in the Rocky Mountains (most recently practiced in Glacier National Park) and the many journeys in search of trout water forms the backbone of inspiration behind my art. As an artist, I suppose it is somewhat odd, that the attachment to the subject came before the art. Instead of being an artist in search of subject matter, I was and am a soul possessed by the subject in search of the means to satisfy the urge to express it.
Madison River
The discovery of pastels twelve years ago, and the evolutionary trajectory of working with them, has pulled me in an artistic direction that took over my life. In 2006 I resigned from teaching high school on the Blackfeet Reservation to pursue my artistic ambitions. Making art has become the apex of the things I love—a wonderful convergence of hiking, fishing and photography all leading to the creation of paintings. When people appreciate my work, when someone feels that the painting touches the beauty of the natural world, it is a kind of sharing that pleases me deeply.
I love the process of painting. From the first laying in of color to the development of the composition, the excitement mounts as colors and value relationships come together. When the painting comes into focus it takes me back to the place, to the moment I stood there beholding it. I enjoy that very much.