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Selections From My Windowsill #7
Bozeman, Montana
2021

A small feather from an unknown (to me) bird species nested in a chunk of elk fur I found on a barb wire fence.

Selections From My Windowsill #6
Bozeman, Montana
2021

Bitterroot is the state flower of Montana but it is rare in our general area. So we are fortunate to have a regular showing of them every year on dry ridge on our land. Deep pink and showy when in full bloom, they dry to a delicate translucent creamy husk.

Selections From My Windowsill #5
Bozeman, Montana
2021

If you make a circle out of wish rocks, does that grant you an even bigger wish than all of them combined randomly? Maybe I should as Andrew Goldsworthy, it seems like he might know about stuff like this.

Selections From My Windowsill #4
Bozeman, Montana
2021

A few years back I participated in a art exhibit and artists tour in the Gansu Province of China. One day on the tour we were invited to watch a film about Chinese beef production at a cattle farm followed by some art lab presentations by some of the touring artists. (Don’t ask me why we were on the cattle farm and why they thought showing us a film about their cattle business that we couldn’t understand was a good ide–it’s just one of the mysteries of touring with a Chinese art organization.) The film wasn’t very interesting (for one thing it was all in Chinese with no translation or subtitles) and the art methods presented weren’t in my bailiwick.

Ordinarily in such circumstances I would just tough it out and I tried to do so on that day. But the room was stifling hot so I finally snuck out and sat in the shade on the concrete stoop on a gravel parking lot. While sitting there, I noticed a plethora of these small pebble-sized wish rocks mixed in with the ordinary rocks in the gravel. (A wish rock is a rock with a line circling around it. If you find one, you get a wish granted. Or so the story goes.) So I entertained myself by searching for and collecting some of them. Each time I picked one up my wish was that no one would come out of the building and make me go back into the heat inside. My wish was granted–the only people who came out were just a few other folks looking for an escape from the heat and boredom as well.

Selections From My Windowsill #3
Bozeman, Montana
2021

The problem with showing your work at an art gallery is that it exposes you to some very interesting art pieces by other artists that you end up buying. In the end you may spend more money than you earn from the sale of your own work. That’s what happened to me at the Rapscallion Gallery here in Bozeman last year. We bought a really cool sculptural piece the night of the reception, and then on returning later I added this crow skull that had been mineralized by treating it with various unknown (to me) chemical compounds, giving it an intriguing patina. Not a bad way to go into the hole selling your art work I guess.

Selections From My Windowsill #2
Bozeman, Montana
2021

On the black background, this sand dollar and its trailing dust particles (shed by the sand dollar itself) reminds me of a curious comet streaking across the night sky. That’s what guided my decision not to sweep the dust away before photographing it.

Selections From My Windowsill #1
Bozeman, Montana
2021

On a recent very hot summer day (we’ve been getting a lot of those this year) I retreated to the coolness of my studio and photographed various items that I’ve collected over the years and placed on the windowsills around the room. A lot of the items I collected just because I thought they were interesting but also thinking that perhaps someday I’d use them in a still life photograph or something. I guess that someday has arrived. I did not do any creative arrangement of combined objects, rather I just did mostly individual “portraits.” Most are objects from nature, but I also have some man-made objects as well.

I don’t remember where I acquired these desiccated strawberries or why I thought they were special enough to keep, but they do have some photogenic appeal I think.

Sheep Moth
Bozeman, Montana
2021

There is a sloping hillside area of our land that, originally covered in grass and sagebrush, has been gradually encroached upon by spreading snowberry bushes. Snowberry is a native plant in our area and there is nothing wrong with it in general, but in this case I did not like the fact that it was choking out the sagebrush and flowers so a few years ago I started mowing part of it. That has resulted in at least the grass and wildflowers returning each year and it perhaps is giving the sagebrush a chance as well. Recently in walking the area, I came across this striking sheep moth on one of the wildflower stalks. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen one before, or if I have, it was a long time ago. When I looked them up on the internet, one source I read indicated that the sheep moth caterpillars liked to pupate on snowberry bushes (among other plant varieties) so I was feeling bad for whacking away at its habitat. But then another source said they are found in sagebrush areas, so I felt better about my attempts to defend our sagebrush from snowberry incursion.

Little Landscapes #50
Bozeman, Montana
2021

Fog moves across ocean swells.

Little Landscapes #49
Bozeman, Montana
2021

The moon over a tumultuous sea.