Little Bighorn

Little Bighorn

10x10

The wind continued to make painting difficult as I traveled from Sheridan to Butte. I stayed off the empty, windy highway as much as I could. It was windy on the side roads, but not quite as windy as on the highway. I was able to pull into a wide place at the side of the road near the Little Bignorn River, and painted sitting in the van, my legs hanging out the side door. It was a beautiful spot, and made me think a little of Wachapreague, with the grasses and the rich autumn browns and oranges. 

It wasn't until I finished the painting and continued on my way that I realized I'd been painting the Little Big Horn, a river made famous - or infamous - by the battles fought along its banks. The Battle of the Little Bighorn was fought quite close to where I made this painting, in Lodge Grass, Montana. It was one of the major battles between Native Americans and whites, and in this case, the Lakota, Northern Cheyenne and Arapho defeated the U.S. troops, killing Gen. George Custer and hundreds more.  To read more about the Battle of Little Bighorn, click here. 

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Dan Bailey Fly Shop

We've received the Dan Bailey Fly Shop catalog for decades. It's a pretty specific catalog, quite large and glossy - and I have to admit, had I even thought there really was a Dan Bailey Fly Shop (why didn't I think there really was one? I don't know! It always seemed like the Amazon of fly fishing), I'd have thought it would be bright and shiny and glossy, like the original Cabela's, which I visited a few years ago. 

So when I called Peter and told him I'd had to stop in Livingston, Montana, and he said - No kidding, that's where Dan Bailey is! - I was delighted and surprised. And I was even more delighted and surprised to find that Dan Bailey was not a bright, shiny, glossy shop - like LLBean has become - but was relatively small and very homey, full of wood and brick, big windows, high ceilings and hardly any gloss at all. 

I was even more delighted when the guy behind the cash register told me that he was an artist. And as we talked, it turned out that he was a really good artist, well-known and apparently well-selling. 

He showed me photos of some of his paintings. They're fun, bright, graphical and many are very large. He told me he paints with nails and spoons, among other items. The pieces he showed me were mostly birds, but there's a variety of his work on his website, JoeFaysArt.com. 

He lived in Los Angeles for years, and has had had shows at museums and galleries in the US and abroad. He and his wife moved to Montana after Joe spent part of a year as the artist in residence at Yellowstone. He works at Dan Bailey to get out of the studio, he told me, and also because he loves to fly-fish. And I bet he gets a good discount. 

The history of the Dan Bailey Fly Shop is pretty interesting. There really WAS a Dan Bailey.  In the 1930s, he was a professor at the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute. He and his wife visited Montana on their honeymoon, and spent the next summer camping and fly-fishing in Montana. She drove the car off the road at one point, and they ended up staying in Livingston for a couple days while it was repaired. 

The previous summer, Dan had found that he was unable to get fly-tying materials while he was in Montana. While the car was being repaired, he found a store in Livingston that he could rent for $20 a month, and thought that a fly shop might be a good idea. The next summer, he left teaching and moved to Montana and began the business. It took a while for his wife to join him, but she did. Some good press and some visits by famous fly fishermen helped get Dan's business off the ground, and by the mid-1950s, the shop was established, and Livingston was known as a top fly-fishing destination. For more on the history, and on Dan Bailey's successful efforts to protect Montana's waterways, click here. 

The store is now run by Dan's son, John. Joe the artist told me that John was the fly-fishing advisor for the movie "A River Runs Through It," and in the photo above, you can see stills from the movie. 

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Dog of the Day

A hard-working cattle dog heads back to the barn. 

Outside Joliet

Outside Joliet

10x10

As I drove north into Montana, the mountains became more and more a part of the landscape. Snow covered their peaks, and you could tell these mountains are massive, muscular, tough. The ranges were not huge - Crazy Mountains in one direction, Pioneer Mountains in another, Tobacco Range in a third - so these were separate ranges, with different topography, different origins, probably different geography.

Even though they were far away, they began to surround the landscape, and it gave me the feeling of being very high up, very close to the sky. 

Joliet was a small, quiet town in southern Montana, the kind of place that makes you wonder what people do who live there. It was pleasant and a little old, and in the middle just spectacular scenery and incredible, clear light. 

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Above, the Absaroka Range. I wanted to go and see these mountains, and paint them, and one of my sponsors had suggested it, but storms were blowing in at the high elevations, and I just couldn't see my way clear to go. 

Here are more mountains, this time near Livingston, Montana. I painted these on my return trip.

I began to see the Yellowstone River, running alongside the highway. 

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Dog of the Day

This time, the DOD is a couple of chickens! And I'm very proud of this. One sponsors asked me to look for a painting of chickens, and I promised I would, but wondered if I'd really be able to locate a chicken or two out west. Lo and behold, chickens! The full photo is below.