Kayaking The Missouri River

So far, I have kayaked over a thousand miles of the Missouri River, that starts at Three Forks Montana and empties into the Mississippi at St. Louis. The river is over twenty-three hundred miles long, seven hundred of those miles are taken up by reservoirs that span half of Montana, and almost all of North and South Dakota. The three largest damns have given us no end of trouble; from long days of sitting on shore waiting for the winds to change, to lighting storms that make you pray fervently that your time isn't up! We resorted to traveling at night, at times, finding the winds seemed to calm, using the G.P.S. to navigate and being dazzled by the expanse of stars that carpet the sky. When you look up into those stars with no horizon in view and the rock of the water against your boat you feel as if you are falling into those depths. Falling and falling with out end.
The best part of the trip has been the people we have met. From the art student who we nick-named the French Terrorist, who started the trip with us, to the dozens of people who gave us rides over the damns, warmed out hearts with their stories and the sharing of our own and let us stay out of the weather in their homes. I sit now in Chamberlin South Dakota writing on a computer that was loaned to us by a lady that we met by asking directions to the local post office. She later found us eating in one of the cafes and asked us if we needed a warm place to stay. It was dumping rain out side and we gladly excepted the offer. We have even stayed an extra day because we enjoyed her company so much and felt she enjoys ours. To be a stranger and be offered the love and trust of another stranger is truly a remarkable feeling. Just a few days ago in Pierre (the capitol of S. Dakota) I asked a lady on a dock how to best get to a grocery store from the river and she asked if we just wanted a ride. The offer of a ride became what felt like an adoption into her and her husbands family. They feed us, brought us to their friends house where we were fed again and offered us beds in their home but the best part was they made us feel as if we were doing the most important thing in the world. They celebrated our trip with us, asking all manner of questions and wanting to hear everything we had to say from religion to politics. They loved us and renewed our souls with their hospitality. The long days of wind, waves, sleepless nights, being lost, sunburned and aching mussels seemed to fall away from us. We left Pierre feeling alive again and excited about what we were doing and the adventure we are on. Reminding me that this isn't about the destination but about the story that unfolds each day. In life there is long nothing days (I hear my paddle in an endless splish-splash and a horizon that never seems to get closer is always in front of me), every one has them, and even on adventures that seem so grand there are times when all you want is that destination. Northern Dakota and the endless plains could drive you mad for loneliness, there is not much to see and it is all flowing by at a speed of four miles an hour or less depending on head winds! All you do is think and think and think! What will I do when I get home, will we make it, do I want to make it, were am I going to live, does she love me, and on and on it goes. You end up forgetting why you are doing this crazy journey and what made you want to in the first place. There is no beauty any more, just miles and miles that stand before you and your goal. You hate everything that slows you and you go to battle with the wind. Yet, you can't battle the wind in your life for very long, you just arn't strong enough. At some point in life you end up stuck sitting on shore and looking at flowers. Then it slowly comes to you "Shit, these flowers are really pretty! I would have never seen them if not for the wind."

Stone Throws

"In the hours before sunrise,
I lay dreaming in the night.
Watching stars fall from the sky,
I saw then the eyes of this love,
What many a man longs to find.
Drawing up my anchors in then,
I set my sail pealing for that life.

Rolling down the high ways
Buzzing in the wires
Folding up the stair case
Planting flowers in her eyes
Loving up the wrong roads
And saving up my tears
Sunlight burns the brightest
When your love is near.

I could be a your drunk reeling
Down your lonely streets,
Or a Bible man babbling
From brick homes on his knees,
Coming through the wires,
Coming through your vanes,
The bell man tolls the long tones
As you lay your head to sleep.
A license for the wrong love,
A love that bleed no life,
Yet I will keep on sailing
Through these palaces of midnight."

What next???!!!

There is always the question, after I get done with a body of work, that pops into my brain: "What next, what am I going to do next?" And the answer is I don't know, I want to market the work I have already done and that is a full time job in it self. I have to keep working on new ideas though because when you stagnate for to long your imagination becomes the six o'clock news! You can't make hide nor hair of it and it leaves you frothing at the mouth every time you attempt to approach it.

P.S. Photo Credits go to my good friend Scott Marksberry.

More, more, more!!!

Here are some more of the pieces from from the show on April 26th.
If you are interested in any of my work please contact me and I will let you know about prices, sizes and prints.

An Art Show On Longing

If you have any questions about prices of my prints or original work please write me and I will send you a price list. I also have gift cards with really nice quotes on some of them with images of each one of my pieces.

Longing to Heal - A Fine Art Show -

These pieces represent the last year of my work and much of my thought. A combination of past memories, feelings and emotions on the subject of the "Soul". Many are a representation of the road I see both my self and others being on. The journey of the heart and soul.
I get a blank stare many times when I ask people how they in-vision them selves or others on the inside. (I am not talking here about organs like the liver or kidneys) I am talking about the psyche or the spirit of people. Most of us talk about "good vibes" or "that person has a bad energy" when we mention this, (the basic feeling some one gives off when they walk into the room). In my art I feel that the most powerful imagery is that which captures that feeling of the spirit of man.
This group of work primarily centered on the memories of the feelings of the past that haunt us and the hope and fear of letting go to heal from wounds and abuses from the past. This idea originated out of the knowledge of how many of us have histories of abuse; weather physical, mental or sexual. Of how that abuse shapes and forms our insides and then is represented in our choices we make every day. Each piece is a mirror of these feeling I get from ether my self or others around me. In each image there is pain and there is hope in healing from the pain, if you choose to see it.