Brio

The Brio is back and lovely as ever, but in necklace form this time.

For all the horse loving ladies out there.

XX

Spirit

I’m making you lovely things right now and it is very well with my soul.  This is the latest iteration of my “Spirit” series which continues to develop and grow like a living and breathing thing here in its fourth year, FOURTH YEAR, of being coaxed into being from metal, stone, flame and fingertip:

“We are not separate from spirit, we are in it.” [Plotinus]

Oh, I believe it and I feel it to be true.

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It’s difficult for me to survive these fire seasons, these staggering times of utter dishevelment followed by extreme illumination and creative rise.  I live in a dingy cave of fatigue and lonesomeness while he is away at work and then he returns and it’s as though my very fingertips are flame.  I feel myself reborn.  Reconstituted from the summer mud of soot and tears.  Set upright.  Ready to begin again.  The fire season burns me alive and then I experience a wild regrowth that shoots me skyward.

I sometimes wonder what my creative life would be like without it.

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I’m holding these earrings over until I have a bundle of them made.  I hope to stock my shop shelves for you in the first week of November.

Thank you for being in my world.

XX

Modern Huntsman Vol.2

Good morning friends!

I failed to mention the first volume of Modern Huntsman in this space when it hit the shelves last year but I’m making the time to mention Volume 2 which is fresh off the printing presses and available to order as I type this.  I contributed two written pieces to the first volume, a smattering of other images that were peppered throughout the book and was also the featured artist!  More importantly, my co-contributers offered up incredible insights, stories and imagery that put my work to shame.  Volume 1 is still available for order and is a beautiful, intelligent, wonderfully designed book you’ll keep in your personal library for years to come.

Modern Huntsman Volume 2 bears down on the topic of public lands both here in North America but also in a global sense.  I contributed a piece of prose that is, in essence, a gentle quartet that sings gratitude for my seasonal experiences on the public lands that I immerse myself in on a daily basis here in my wild Idaho.  Other contributions positively gleam with intelligence, scientific fact and general revelations that will give you hope for our wild places.  I hope you consider claiming a copy of the book for yourself or a friend or a loved one.  It’s for everyone everywhere, not just people who practice the craft of hunting (at the heart of which is conservation).

In the meanwhile, I am giving away five copies on my Instagram account.  Please swing by and drop your name in the hat!

Thank you to everyone who has supported this publication.  Your support ensures future volumes go to print, ensures the storytelling and educational information this magazine provides can continue and evolve and grow, and your support directly pays contributors for their photography and writing efforts which helps to defeat the hyper-romanticized myth of the starving artist!!!  Help feed us so we can feed your minds and souls.  Give and receive alongside us and be uplifted.  That’s art.  That’s storytelling.  That’s work well done.

Sorry I’m Late

“I’m sorry I’m late!  There were sheep on the road!”

I’ve used this excuse a few times while trying to get to city appointments on time and it always manages to make me and the person (or professional) waiting for me laugh.  Though this state of mine is being shook awake by an huge population influx at the moment, groaning with growing pains, shuddering beneath the thundering speed-enhancement that comes with multitudes of transplanted Californians…I like to think the heart of our rural spaces remains unchanged.

On the way to the post office yesterday, the shepherds were moving sheep across the river and up the road.  It’s a thrill to see them working with their dogs and horses at this age old business of flock tending.  I love the sight of the woolies moving as one across the sage, grabbing rogue bites of weeds and plant matter as they move, tramping the road flat, murmuring and bleating as they flow into empty space.  They’re down from the high country now which means winter is on the way and I’ll testify to the fact.  Idaho summer begins and ends with the yellow of balsam root and sunflowers as well as the bleat of sheep on the range.

Wood Getting

We left the farm in light drizzle, passed the sage and rabbit brush on the driveway in creamy greens and mustard yellows, popped up and over onto the main road to see the river below, teal and tranquil and buzzing with whitewater runs.

Up on the steppe we moved into the clouds, visibility none.  Headlights of oncoming trucks surprised me into exclamation!  The road wound about and then shot straight up and over the hills — lava flows and rock formations eerie in the wet light.

In the next town we realized we were quite hungry so we stopped for a bite to eat.  The waitress frightened me so I said thank you too much and avoided eye contact as I ate my burger.

We rose up and up again into our local range, into heavy clouds and skiffs of intermittent snow, over the pass (I remembered when it was all wildflowers) and dropped down the other side into quiet trees and steep side hills.  We scanned for dead wood.

“This close to the summit is picked over.  We’ve got to go deeper in.”

We dropped deeper still, the creek rushing alongside.  We turned onto a smaller forest service road, I watched the new creek rolling in the opposite direction, watched for deep pools that might hold fish, watched the fog banks envelope the tree tops, pointed out beautiful rock outcroppings to him as we went.

Still no dead wood.

We passed a hot spring, a miniature Yellowstone but void of crowds and the camera flashes and the trampling and murmuring of crowds…just a simple mountain face cut with a bevy of hot creeks, steaming in cold air.  We stopped to pee.  I put my hands in creek water, gasping as I always do when it’s hot to the touch.

“Do you want to come back and soak once we’re done cutting?”

We agreed.

We rolled on and looked closely at every hunting camp we passed and agreeing our elk camp is sublime in comparison.

“It’s so quiet there.  We’re tucked away.  We can’t hear any trucks coming in.  We can see the full breadth of the valley.  It’s glorious!”

We watched for trees to cut.  We stopped to survey a few only to agree that they were too close to the creek.  We drove on.  A truck pulled over to allow us space to pass.  I looked to my right and saw a two track cutting through the creek and pointed it out to Robbie.  We slowed, twisted an uncanny u-turn across a campsite and dipped the truck and trailer into mountain water.  Up the other side I watched as the trailer bumped and shimmied over rocks making awful groans.  We crawled up the slope and hit a honey hole of dead lodgepoles.  Bingo.  And so we cut.  Or, more accurately, Robbie cut.  I wrangled 8-10ft sections of tree, rolled or end-over-ended sections down the slope to the trailer.  We lifted and loaded, one by one, our winter fires.  I felt the bones of my hands and wrists grinding, carpal tunnel from the past month of overuse, and yet, I lifted.  Our last tree was a beauty.  It sounded like a freight train as it crashed to the forest floor.  The glorious scent of pine heart exploded into cold air amidst the righteous green scent of crushed pine needles and stirred duff.

“Oh mercy.  The woods are alive.”

We stopped at the springs on the way home, tired and hungry, hiked up to a nice pool with the bag of food I packed that morning, stripped down to our skin and dipped in to healing water beneath snowy peaks, like only Idahoans can.

I love having him home again.  I like to grab him and kiss him whenever I like just because I can.  I like to witness him in action and appreciate all he brings to this partnership.  I like the feeling I have of being whole again, less alone, more together, more sound, more myself.