original painting: 22x28, oil on panel (the original oil painting has been sold) In the summer of 2021 I was awarded an opportunity to spend two weeks in the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex in the northern Rockies to focus on my art and creative process as a participant in the Artist-Wilderness Connection program. Just as important as the sketches and paintings that I created during my residency was the undistracted time I spent at the Granite Cabin reading, writing, and thinking about the concepts of place and wilderness and how these ideas can be made into my artwork. This work evolved into an idea that the landscape around me had three stories to tell: a geological story, a natural story, and a cultural story. These stories were then incorporated into a new series of paintings to capture the full story of this place in the Great Bear Wilderness. This piece is based off of sketches made while hiking along the Middle Fork of the Flathead near the confluence of 25 mile creek. This was one of the few days that smoke rolled into the valley, giving the light a warm muted glow.
