A long overdue how are you and thank you for dropping by. As usual it has been quite the whirlwind but today the afternoon broke sunny and warm. This shirt sleeve weather feels good after the cold and three feet of snow that blew in from the north a couple of weeks ago. The snow is just a dream now though as the Chinook wind came blowing warm and dry, leaving very little of the white stuff. Most of that should be gone in a couple of days as the temperatures are headed into the 70's. A nice reprieve but they claim more winter is around the corner next week.
Before the big snow fell I was able to get up onto the Buffalo Jump to block in a painting. The calm blue sky Indian summer days were perfect for a scene related to the jump as this would be about the same time the Indians would have had the big drives to secure their winter meat. From my perch at the confluence of the old stacked rock drive lines I was once again humbled by what must have been an amazing spectacle. If all had gone well and part of the herd could have been stampeded from high up on Horseman Flat, and if none of the panicked Bison was able to get past the lines of defense and direction the people made to get the huge creatures to the brink of the cliff, and if the final push scared the bison in the rear to push the ones on the brink over the cliff, then just maybe the people would stand a better chance of making it through another winter. The noise of the thundering and bawling herd combined with the orchestrated yelling and trilling of the people accentuated by the extreme excitement of the moment must have made this a very big medicine place in the long ago. To me it still is. In fact, one day while I was working two full grown golden eagles came floating along on the slightest of thermals rising from the cliffs. They paid me no mind and it was quite a pleasure to float along with them for a while...
These days one sits up on the brink on a calm day and all you can hear is the river as it meanders through the cottonwoods in the valley below. There is a big white rock right at the spot the drive lines come together and this is in the foreground of my painting. Mountains in the distance are catching the morning sun but most of the nearer ones are still in shadow. I think the drives would have been made at day break so as to blind the bison at the brink of the cliff.
I have painted up here quite a few times already and each time the power of the spot affects me more. I swear that sometimes my mind's eye wanders and before you know it I am watching the stampede over the cliff. The din of the yells and bawling mingle in to the dust and the sunrise and I am left amazed by something that happened in my beautiful valley so very long ago.
Now that the winter snows are beginning to blow in I hope to get more work done at the easel. One of the studies from this summer is up on New Work and next I am going to work on the seen from the Lake Plateau that I blocked in last August. As I look from my cabin up into those snow clad mountains it is hard to imagine the grass green and wild flowers in the horse pastures like it was last summer. I think I'll dream about it into a painting and see what happens. Until then, thanks again for dropping by. Sincerely, Tom
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