I am shouting out a huge thank you to Frame of Reference Fine Art for selling four of my paintings in the past few weeks! Thanks so much, all of you! I’ll post pics of the first two tonight.
The lovely brunette is “Clara Belle” and the still life is called “A Bowl of Birds and a Bison”.
#frameofreferencefineart, #paintingsofanimals #stilllifes #cows #bison #birds
We had a fun evening last Thursday for the Gallery Walk event at Frame of Reference Gallery in Whitefish. Featured were myself, Frank Hagel and Jack Lyons. There were lots of people in attendance, the gallery looked great, and I sold a few paintings in the next few days! Thanks so much Derek, Tula and Julie! Oh, my paintings and Jack Lyons woodwork are visible on the right side of this picture.
I was surfing the web, looking for ideas for a title for my canoe painting and found this. Sounds like good advice to me! “Love many, trust a few, and always paddle your own canoe.” This was attributed to a bumper sticker, so I can’t credit the author. Anyway, I’ve titled my painting “Always Paddle Your Own Canoe”, 24×24 oil.
Please join me Thursday night at Frame of Reference Gallery in Whitefish, MT. for Gallery night. I’ll be in good company with other artists Frank Hagel and Jack Lyons. #frameofreferencefineart #fineart #contemporaryart #waterscape
I’ve had a terrible time with cameras lately. It’s been quite frustrating! Maybe it’s time for a new one? But finally, I managed to get a good shot of this piece. I like this painting, “Wellspring”. It’s 24 x 24, an oil on board, and I sold it on Sunday at the Iron Horse Summer Art Social in beautiful Whitefish, MT.
I am pleased to announce that I have a new gallery in Whitefish, MT. – Frame of Reference Fine Art. I met Derek and Tula during Art Week in Great Falls. They are professional, experienced, and I know will be fun to work with! I sent quite a few pieces with them in March, and will be there for a three person show early this summer. I thought I’d attach a picture of their great gallery! 
Catching up here after art week in Great Falls, and many other things as well. However, it’s now time to post some art! I’ve had fun working with metal leaf lately. It’s a very different process than my usual. The metal leaf dictates, and requires a more time consuming process than just painting with oils. It is also less forgiving!
I do particularly like this painting, “Beginnings”. It is oil and metal leaf, 18×24. I would think the title needs no explanation!
“Beginnings” sold at the Big Sky Auction for the Arts in March, held at Moonlight Lodge in Big Sky.
For various reasons, I have not done many pieces of Native Americans recently, but when I came across Mourning Dove’s story I couldn’t resist. With that, and the visual I immediately got when I saw her name, I just had to do this piece. It is currently one of my favorites, and the second piece I did using gold leaf. I’m happy with the way it turned out. As Mourning Dove’s story is a long one, even my abbreviated version, I’ll post the painting first, so you can skip the story if you’d like. I do think it’s important though.
“Mourning Dove” is oil and gold leaf on board and is 36 x 24. It will be available in my OWAS room 176 at the Heritage Inn during Art Week – coming up fast – March 15 – 18th!
Mourning Dove was the pen name of Christine Quintasket, an Interior Salish woman born in 1884. In 1904, she enrolled in the Fort Shaw Indian School which was about 30 miles from her grandparents home in Great Falls, Montana. In Montana, she witnessed the 1908 roundup of the last free-ranging bison herd, an event that had a profound effect on her. Soon thereafter, she began to develop the idea for a novel that combined traditional tribal culture with a romantic story, based around the epic buffalo roundup.
Her novel, “Cogewea, the Half-Blood”, (1927) was the first known published novel by a Native American woman. It explored the plight of the mixed blood (or “breed”), who lived in both white and Indian cultures. In it, she described centuries-old traditions with the authority of her own first-hand knowledge and experiences.
A new author, Mourning Dove felt that her editor McWhorter greatly changed her book. She wrote to him, “I felt like it was someone else’s book and not mine at all. In fact the finishing touches are put there by you, and I have never seen it.”
Over the years, Quintasket had pointedly gathered what she called “folklores” from tribal people throughout the northern Plateau region. She published “Coyote Stories” in 1933. It included editing credits to Guie and McWhorter and a foreword by Chief Standing Bear. As a result of the editing, many of the stories as published were unrecognizable to the Colville-Okanagan elders who originally told them.
After her death in 1936, the 20 folders of her miscellaneous writings were eventually organized and edited into thematic and grammatical consistency by researcher Jay Miller (b. 1947), who had worked with many elders on the Colville Reservation. These writings appeared in 1990 as “Mourning Dove: A Salishan Autobiography”.
This is the first piece I’ve done experimenting with gold leaf. Although it’s hard to see it in this photograph, the gold has given a glow to the painting. This has been an interesting project; quite the learning curve. “Majestic One” is an oil with gold leaf on board, 24×24.
I will have this painting, and many others at the Heritage Inn in my show room 176 – at the Out West Art Show (OWAS) in Great Falls, MT. March 13 – 17th!
The Mixonium platform you see here (the digital postcard of sorts) was invented by a friend of ours. This particular Mixie was put together for me by the Arts Council of Big Sky, promoting their Auction for the Arts on March 23. Come on up to Big Sky!
(a note – those are my hands and palette in their main page image – my claim to fame!
https://mixonium.com/mx/7261
