Field Notes

It’s the end of a long day and after walking the dogs (I’ve been a bachelor since Jenny left with little George to visit friends and attend a family reunion on the East Coast), I settled down to have a dinner salad and read the initial pages of a book on Thomas Moran that came in the mail today (actually a book of his letters to his wife entitled “Home thoughts from afar: Letters of Thomas Moran to Mary Nimmo Moran”). With the dogs at my feet I settled into the book and a down blanket as clouds built to the west. Soon the sound of distant thunder and the sweet smell of rain-kicked dust enveloped the house porch. With the thunderheads blotting out the remaining sunlight, I put my book down and wrapped the blanket tighter around. The mass of refreshing cool air brought a chilly bite and I recline further to enjoy the orange flicker of lightning as it streaked through the clouds above.

I had the most enjoyable time in the park today with some folks on a Yellowstone Association program. We met at Roosevelt Lodge then departed for Lamar Valley around 6:30 AM. Wolf viewing was slim to nil so we made a few stops to watch pronghorn antelope bison and a black bear along the south side of the Valley. We soon got a tip from another guide that there had been a grizzly around the confluence of Lamar River and Soda Butte Creek. Though not visible when we arrived, the bear was certainly in the area, so endeavored to wait it out. After climbing up on the bluff overlooking the river we took in the morning scenery-bright sun clear skies and a fair amount of greenery for this time of the year. We saw coyotes sandhill cranes and a light colored grizzly all the way across the Lamar Valley moving along the tree line. And just as soon as we finished watching that bear along Soda Butte Creek popped out of the willows. Its main motivation, it seemed, was to leave its shady bed in the shrubs and take a cooling bath in the creek water. This it did, lounging about and submerging itself up to its shoulders and neck before leaving to graze on some grasses and disappear into the willows again. We took a quick trip up to Baronett peak and spotted a nanny mountain goat in her kid. The mother was fully in her sleek, white summer coat and stood out clearly against the green patch of vegetation where they fed… Once you knew where to look… After lunch we took a quick hike up to a small lake and were greeted with views of six different otters-all frolicking and fishing along the lake shore. They looked like sleek brown porpoises as they follow each other in a line swimming parallel to the shore line-breaking the water surface to breathe, and with arched backs, diving back down, and then up again.

I just came back from the most enjoyable walk this morning with little George and the dogs. We had a good solid hour to spend as we’ve been trying to give Jenny some free time for her own music lessons. We spotted a few new butterflies including Ruddy coppers (which the males tend to look like a flake of red chrome flitting through the air), a European skipper, Becker’s whites, many small wood-nymphs, a Speyeria fritillary, a common wood-nymph and a huge swallowtail cruising the stream corridor-I’m quite sure it was a two-tailed. It’s been very sunny and warm so little boy and I ducked between the shadows of the alders and willows along the creek. The going was easy and the little guy fell asleep enough that I was able to bend over and pick some noxious weeds-something I try to do on each stroll. The dogs never seem to tire of our walks, they bound in and out of the brush with long tongues in wet coats. Bright sun, the gurgle of the creek, dappled light in the willows, pokey cheatgrass seeds and the scent of high summer all make for time well spent, well… minus the cheatgrass.

Monday’s become my officially unofficial day of unstructured time in the Park. I’m not sure how often you have one of these days but it seems that mine started out early in the morning, and headed in the wrong direction. By the time the world began waking up around me I was looking for reasons to be grumpy… the only surefire cure was to disappear into the Park do whatever my heart desired. So, today was sketching out a Calcite Springs (Mondays are also the day Little George is in daycare). I didn’t set out to go anywhere particular but I just started heading east and made up my mind to stop wherever it seemed ‘right’. There was a black bear near Geode Creek and a pile of cars from tourists with cameras - this was not the experience I was after today. After weaving through the traffic and moving bodies it seemed right to stop at the Calcite Springs overlook. I spent the next several hours getting sunburn on the back of my neck, talking to visitors and making pencil studies of the canyon, the bluffs and various rapids surrounding rocks in the Yellowstone River. So cathartic was this day without an agenda, that I didn’t even mind when three of my best drawings fell out of the notebook and caught by the blustery winds, sailed off over a 500 foot cliff into the canyon… c’est la vie, I got what I came for - and it wasn’t something that couldn’t be put on paper.

Some pencil studies that did make it onto paper from Calcite Springs area including Bumpus Butte, a unique Douglas fir tree and some rapids in the Yellowstone River.

In this post, it will follow up with some more observations I made of this sculpture “Marcus Daly” by Autustus Saint-Gaudens. Here I’ve laid out some examples of how lines in the position of masses can affect the movement of the viewers eye - these represent two of the tools artists use to guide a viewer’s experience work of a work of art. Here some of the things that I found my eyes doing while looking at this sculpture… see what you find yours doing… 

A look at the use of lines and significant forms by Augustus Saint-Gaudens in the sculpture of Marcus Daly

 In the center, is what the sculpture as it looks when viewed from the back, to the left are the lines indicated that caught my eye and the directions they took me (you may have to click on image to see what direction the arrows are pointing). For me, it seemed like many of the lower lines brought my eye down to the bottom of that coat and to the leg is holding most of his weight. The upper lines seem to draw the attention to his shoulders and head. On the right are the main masses that caught my eye- starting with the head -I guess, because it’s at the top and maybe because some of those lines brought me there. Once my eyes fixated on the head, I found that it went down to that hat in his hand, then over to the bottom of the coat and then up to that portion of the coat draped over his arm and finally back to his head again. The ultimate effect for me was what a lot of artists referred to as ‘movement’ in a sculpture or painting… This is not to say that the artwork is of something in motion, rather, it creates movement on the part of the viewer’s gaze. So, even with a figure standing still or a bust can have ‘movement’ if it has the effect of sending your eye around the piece in a journey of continual discovery. Let us know what you find here and try it out on something near your home.

 Take a look at the three images of this sculpture and take note of the omissions of those on the right and left. The center image is exactly how St. Gaudens sculpted the Marcus Daly monument. Saint-Gaudens was very deliberate in his choice of composition - no extraneous elements were included. And of the elements that were included, they were arranged in a specific way. If any of the elements of the sculpture are deleted, it changes the feel of the piece significantly. In the left-hand image, I erased the hat for the sake of discussion. To me, this throws the visual weight of the sculpture heavily to the right and it just feels like something is missing on that left side - as if the figure should extend that arm to even things up. You?

Similarly, I erased the top of the coat that was draped over the figure’s arm on the right-hand image. In this case, by eliminating the form draped over the arm, it diminishes the overall mass of the sculpture to a large extent. The result, in my mind, is that St. Gaudens included this form on the right side to add greater force and presence to the sculpture. The individual depicted here is Marcus Daly - one of the great “Copper Kings” of Butte, MT and a very powerful individual in the world of politics and commerce. Compare the two images on the right, and perhaps you will agree with me - that the middle image has a greater feel of solidity, a more profound presence and more rooted in place than the image to the right. To me, the center image is more bullish… a greater force to be reconed with… like the man himself. More on the composition of “Marcus Daly” in a later post.

What an amazing burst of color the prickly pears have given us around the house lately! Every night over the last week we’ve taken our evening walk and exclaimed how we “should’ve brought the camera”… Jenny finally did and captured some images of these prickly beauties. It’s fascinating for me to see the variation in color, some blooms are a bright cool, lemon yellow and others move on a gradient from warm slightly orange yellow all the way up to nearly orange. We were commenting on what would be the main pollinators for these cactus, was it some night time feeder? Probably not, we guessed… On account of the fact the flowers are at their most open at midday, not during the night.

Though closing up for the evening, these prickly pear flowers are still quite stunning.

Just a last two days the Cottonwood trees surrounding our home and local environs of begin to shed their cottony seeds. The air is filled with what looks like July snow-every gust of wind brings with it a flurry of white fuzz. I left my truck window open during the day and the whole driver side was coated in what looked like uncolored cotton candy. Last night while walking our usual route before nightfall we came back by the Blanding station and Jenny, a few yards ahead of myself and the dogs, said, “stop, what’s that to the right?”

Summertime snow courtesy of the cottonwood trees.

As I walked up beside her at here to the corner of my eye to see at nighthawk perched on a fence rail just 20 feet away! It was so close that I didn’t want to give our full attention for fear of scaring it off. We’ve been seeing these evening fliers all over for more than a month now but have only seen three perched on the ground… and those were only spotted when they flushed. This was by far the best view we’ve had to date and we went back to get the camera to take advantage of the opportunity. The bird seems completely at ease resting patiently on that fence rail with its eyes alternately closed or cracked open. At one point while I was holding the camera it yawned opening it’s enormous gape… it was completely obvious why one of their alternate names is frog mouth. It seems as if it’s entire head opened up, then closed back into a feathery bundle

A wonderful view of the nighthawk perched on a fence rail near home.

A ballpoint pen sketch from last evening.

This is a quick ballpoint pen sketch that did before bed last night. I used Jenny is the starting point but was more focused on trying some effects with the pen than creating an exact likeness.

The radio reports that the East Coast is having record heat - into the triple digits so they say - and here we wake up to snow. Going out to the studio morning I took a look at the thermometer, and though not surprised by the chilly read of 40°F, I was a bit taken

This is a view to our south and west this morning-snow on Sepulcher and Electric Peaks.

by the skiff of snow on top of Sepulcher and Electric Peaks. Unpleasant as some may think it is, it still keeping our fire season at bay and our valleys green.