Fall at Logan Pass
Fall at Logan Pass, oil on linen on panel, 24x32 $8500. Email for availability.
Why some paintings taker longer to sell than others is a mystery. Oftentimes, the one that is accepted into many shows and wins several awards, keeps coming home time after time. With each award or accolade, that painting usually gets a little bit of a price increase. After all, the work has a more distinguished provenance with every new attaboy. This familiar scenario occurred on my painting, Down to the Sea, for example. After winning more than $8000 in awards, the painting finally sold (and for a much higher price).
Personal struggle. Let me share something a little personal here. I have had a lot of jobs in my life. Almost all of them were so exciting in the beginning. There was so much to learn, so many challenges, and I embraced each task and rose to the top. However, in every job, after a few years, the shine wore off, long hours of frustration tugged at me, and burn out crushed my spirit. The longest run was as a graphic designer. I really thought I had found my place. But after 13 years, and many grateful opportunities, even that career came to an end. All this to say, that when I began painting full-time in 2005, I knew from the very first that this new path would never grow old. There is always something new and exciting to try, subject to paint, places to go. But... and here it comes... being a workaholic takes its toll on everyone and everything. Travel is exhausting, but I refuse to complain about that because I am so blessed to be able to venture out to beautiful locations in which to explore and paint. Somewhere around 2016, I began to grow weary of the dreaded suitcase. The first signs came when I was painting in Maui in February and the battle to feel happy about it was being consumed by the guilt that I did not. By summer, I was seriously feeling the burnout. It was evident to me when I was standing in one of the most beautiful places on earth, with my easel, no pressure to paint, in the Sierras with friends, and yet I was in tears just wishing I could go home. Honestly, the feeling was 50% exhaustion and 50% just being homesick. What happened next was nothing short of a miracle... my visits to paint Waterton Lakes and Glacier National Parks.
In June of 2017, my friend Pamm Ciupa met me in Waterton Lakes to paint. Pamm grew up in the area and I loved hearing her stories about it. The first day we painted, it was raining and sleeting, the wind gusts were at 50mph, and I still couldn't bring myself to stop painting. I tied myself to a tree to paint the magnificent colors. When things got even worse, I painted with gouache in the front seat of Pamm's Jeep. What was different? Not exactly sure, but things continued to feel better and better. Still, I wasn't exactly looking forward to all of the packing and unpacking and time away from my husband that I was facing that year. But then...
Wait, I'm getting ahead of myself. Shortly after the Waterton visit, wildfires ravaged many of the areas I had painted, the visitors' center burned, and other businesses were [thankfully] saved. Those same fires, of course, were growing throughout Glacier as well, and by the time I arrived in Kalispell in September, fires had reached 104,000 acres in Alberta (and were still burning), and the Historic Sperry Lodge in Glacier had been destroyed. According to the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation, 2017 fires totaled more than a million acres burned that year.
Friends Jill Carver and Paul Kratter were making similar trips to paint Glacier around this same timeframe. Jill was evacuated from her hotel at one point, moved to the other side of the park, and still could not breathe well enough, let alone see anything but smoke. Paul's works have a beautiful but eery color also due to the smoke. He was able to get some painting done while there. I postponed my trip by a week and arrived to see glorious fall colors alongside dead, burned trees. It was fascinating to be able to see so clearly where the fires would stop, turn, burn in another direction, while just a few feet away were trees totally untouched. Again, Pamm met me to paint together.
Overcome with inspiration. It had been so long since I experienced excitement this way. It truly felt like magic and I wandered and roamed and painted day after day with a happiness indescribable in words. Big blue skies, intense gold leaves, the promise of new growth, and the devastation and destruction. It was as if I was looking at nature and peering inside my very own soul. This time, I could not wait to get home to paint from my studies!
The paintings flowed out of me. They are some of my very favorites from the past several years. The sketches have many more uses for many more larger pieces still. I returned to Glacier in August of that year to teach a 3-day workshop inside the park. That's really rare. National Parks do not generally bless that sort of thing. The Glacier National Park Conservancy agreed to be our partner! The site of the historic Wheeler cabins in West Glacier was our official meeting place. Read about my time there and the devastating fires that took the cabins on the day of my departure.
I continue to find excitement in traveling to paint and I owe much of that to my time at Glacier National Park. It is one of the places I will return to many times in my life for sure. But as I enter into 2020, I look forward to an entire of painting at my home studio. There are hundreds and hundreds of plein air studies stacked in my garage. It’s time I made good use of them! Watch your INBOX for details on a major solo exhibition taking place in 2021 to showcase the work.
Provenance. “Fall at Logan Pass” was developed from plein air sketches in Glacier. Completed in January, 2018, it was originally exhibited at the Hockaday Museum in Kalispell, Montana. As one of the invited men and women to paint the Waterton Glacier International Peace Parks (a UNESCO World Heritage Site). In April of 2019, the painting received an award while on exhibit in the Salmagundi Club Annual Members’ Exhibition. From October 10 to November 11, 2019, it will be part of the Oil Painters of America, Eastern Regional Exhibition of Traditional Oils at Beverly McNeil Gallery in Birmingham, AL.
