Water :: Earth :: Wind :: Fire
Art and Art Education with the Elements
I promised to post a gallery of the sled dog photos included in the exhibit, Ancient Bond. So here it is. Each of these is available for purchase as a signed, archival print. (See details below the gallery) Click on the photos to enlarge them. Watermarks are not on the prints.
Helena, Montana is closing in on a record February snowfall. The winter of 1936 set that record. I’m not sure how much snow we’ve had so far this month (usually our driest month of the winter) but, since last Friday, at least 18 inches of snow has fallen outside our house.
Snow is good. The mountains need snow. The soil, the prairies and farms and trees and fish, the rivers and air and people. We all need this moisture and I will be glad of it in summer when the grasses are crisping and crackling. When wildfires do their roaring, racing, burning thing…
The older I get, the less patient I am with the inconveniences of Montana winters. But the colors! Those colors keep me interested!
I go on at least one walk a day, but I get so cold in my bones that it’s just not as much fun as it was when I was younger and (ahem… ummmm) hotter.
it takes a day like today:
wide open skies
not a single cloud
an almost
(imperceptible)
mist hanging close
to the frozen earthit takes this kind of day
to remember
how many different blues are inside the cold… how many
different
colors belong to white
Snow.
Is not.
White.
You knew that.
So … I hope these images inspire you to take some time and get out into the cold. Bundle up. Stay out until just before the sun goes down so you can grab a little of that incredible light into your soul.
And look. Really look at the colors that surround you!
Those colors will still be inside you on a summer day that tops 100F. When all you want to do is stick your head in a freezer. When you are wishing for some of that of zero-degrees-cold.
I love the soft gradients of some sunsets. This kind of sunset is a quiet counterpoint to the wild, heavily textured sunsets we sometimes have. I like both kinds.
This kind fills me with peace.
These two skies were on either side of me. The top photo is looking east in the evening twilight … then I turned around and shot the photo below, facing directly west.
On my photo walk this week I found myself in such glorious beauty that at times it felt transcendent. It was my birthday today. Charlie and I spent a couple of hours at Cox Lake and on the ridgeline above the lake. Trying to take in the beauty. Trying to take in the light — the incredible crisp, clear, morning light just five minutes from our house.
I could not make myself post just one photo today. Though these are not my best photos ever, still I love the quality of light in these images. So, here are a few, for your viewing pleasure. I hope these images lift your heart as the place did mine.
