This offering is a departure from my usual mountain man, snow elk, hot rods or trains. It's warm and green with flowers...that's what happens when there's four feet of snow and icicles outside my studio windows. I really do love our four seasons (four are Winter). I  look forward to spring and the grass as much as the horses do...I also look forward to the quiet and the beauty of winter....change...it's never boring.

I designed this painting on my Beartooth wilderness pack trip last summer (97)...featuring Deny Chatlain's Rocking 7C Crew. Denny and his crew are the illegitimate family I never had...What a great time. It's really hard to beat my research trips. A comfortable camp in the high country with spectacular scenery and plenty of great food and gentle broke horses and mules and rising trout make for a memorable experience.

What I really enjoyed about this painting was it's cast of characters...Denny Chatlain is on the left (contrary to belief, Jane does (feed him)...Mom would have taken one look at Denny and proclaimed him to be too poor to carry it...Joe Blades is hiding behind the mule...Shane Zumwait is doing the heavy work on the right and Aaron Paulson, as usual, has his back to the viewer. I never saw his face but they say he has red hair. Last but not least are the Board of Directors languishing about as CEO's and VP's tend to do.