Rick and I went up to the park a while back and we found these three standing together.
I couldn’t help but insert myself in between them to see the setting sun.

I have the honor of showing this month at the Porterville College Art Gallery. I will be posting new images within the week, but wanted to invite friends to see what I have been up to this year! It has been an incredible opportunity given by a friend and fellow Three Rivers’s artist, Jim Entz, who is an art professor at the College. I am very grateful! Please note dates and times so you will be sure to get there when the gallery is open!

We thoroughly enjoyed and are now recovered from a great tour weekend! I love that the weather was beautiful, absolutely beautiful, as it is THEE best way to enjoy being out and about in Three Rivers! And because, this ends up being my gallery space!

Rick and I were opened all three days this year and it provided for more time with people as they came through. We figured we had about 200 or so visitors this past weekend. I was thrilled to see people who made a point to come back to see me and, this year especially, there seemed to be a whole host of new people who were wonderful to meet and I think pleasantly surprised by the tour.

As in the past, the conversations were very engaging with people asking many great questions. The highlight for me was meeting a couple of young artists who came with their parents — I hope that what they have experienced on the tour will help them envision creative lives of their own!

I had a new piece for this show, as well as, a piece in process — which I am still working on. I really enjoyed talking with people who had a visible response to the images and which put us right into conversations regarding feelings and perspectives about our lives that we all have in common.

I also decided to create a small calendar to show what graphic design is, as I usually get an eye-glaze response when I tell people that I am a designer. I am going to adjust this for twenty 11, as it was well received.

So thanks to everyone who came, you totally made my weekend! Many thanks to Elsah, Kerry, Anne and Sharon for all you have done to make this tour possible. And to the other artists on the tour and in this little community — while I may not get out much, you all inspire and encourage me with your creativity!!

A huge thankyou to Eddie, Martin and Mondodari, for all your help with getting this place looking it’s lovely best! And to Tori, Michelle and Clemetine at Aj’s for your soothing bedside manner and the three stitches I needed in my thumb thursday! healing nicely! — and lastly, to Rick for being the most amazing husband, friend and woodworker!

See you on the tour in two years, if not sooner!

This past saturday was the artist’s pre-tour for the upcoming Three Rivers Artists’ Studio Tour 9 [March 19, 20 and 21!]. The pre-tour is a day when the artist’s who are on the tour, take the tour — visiting each others studios and sharing art! It was particularly fun this year, connecting and re-connecting with each other and learning more about each other’s individual processes. It was a chance to see and encourage each other, laugh and share a lovely day in Three Rivers!

It has been awhile since my last entry, but I am working on a new painting for the upcoming studio tour 9. [March 19, 20 & 21!] I’m very happy with it and to be painting everyday! This is a detail of the first piece, which will have a companion piece [twins!] that have shown up at the same time. These are larger pieces [36" x 48"] than what I usually work on and with a no.2 brush, it is slow going —but I am a happy girl!

I was introduced to this ride by my friend and horse trainer, Christy Wood, six years ago when she started her first 100 miles. For the next three years I would see her photos, hear the stories and become more informed as to the history of the Nez Perce Indians and their horses. The Appaloosa is the breed of the Nez Perce so this ride only allows registered Appaloosas.

My first trip was the 4th leg, two years ago, over the Lolo pass. It challenged and changed me and was an experience I will never forget. I came home, as one friend said “completely expanded.”

It is awe-inspiring country and a challenging trail — one cannot help but think about those 800 or so Nez Perce who rode and traveled with 2000 Appaloosa horses. It must have been a sight as they went through towns that gave them safe passage.

This year was particularly emotional as we rode into the Big Hole National Monument. Seymour Young Dog, an Oglala Sioux [who is on his 16th year of the ride] sat on the hill above us and sang us onto this sacred ground. It was a profound experience for which I am very grateful. That Friday afternoon, Nez Perce Elders from Lapwai, Idaho officiated a moving ceremony that presented their young riders and honored students, the trail riders, veterans and international guests.

Touring the Monument was also something that I will not forget. To walk among the tepee structures and see the river winding through the valley and then look over to the hill where the 2000 horses grazed that morning…all left me very solemn. It is a battlefield, yes, and sacred ground.

It is an honor and priviledge to ride this trail and I am humbled by the history of the Nez Perce and the Nez Perce who ride with us. I have learned many things and have met many lovely people on this ride.

This ride also helps to raise money for the Chief Joseph Foundation, which promotes Nez Perce cultural preservation, community pride, and community healing through activities primarily centered around the Appaloosa horse.

Clearly this ride is huge [this year almost 180 riders] and so a huge thank you to the Appaloosa Horse Association, the ranchers who let us ride and camp on their properties, the US Forest Service, the National Park Service, the town of Darby, the cook and camp crews, the picket line crew, the trail guides [including the Doc, the Vet, his assistant and the farrier], the potable water [showers!] and portable toilets in camp.

Many many thanks to Seymour Young Dog, Bonnie Ewing and the Foundation’s young riders, the Nez Perce Elders, the guest lecturers from the Nez Perce tribe, the Confederate Tribes of Kootenai/Flathead/Salish, Diana Mallickan, the National Park Sevice and the Nez Perce National Historic Trail Museum.

A heartfelt thank you to Christy, Stacy, and the lovely friends who I have reconnected with and made on this ride! [Tatiana and Bridget, you were greatly missed!]

If you are at all interested, there are a number of great books you can read. [Yellow Wolf: His Own Story / LV McWhorter; Dreamers, On the Trail of the Nez Perce / Martin Stadius; I Will Fight No More Forever — Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce War / Merrill D. Beal; The Last Indian War — The Nez Perce Story / Elliot West]

Below are a few photos…

Assembly Camp picket line…

A Tuesday that started out as a 25 mile ride…ended up as a 30.9!

I think we have about 4 more miles to go…

Through lodgepole forest and lupine covered ground…

One of the few times Sierra and I are in front of Christy and Dollar!

Entering Big Hole National Monument.

Big Hole Battlefield.

Hill where the horses were that morning…

Big Hole camp picket line.

Stacy, me and Christy last night on the road home!

more photos can be seen at the Appaloosa Horse Association Blog.

For several reasons, it is bittersweet for me when I finish a painting. First one
being that I paint rather slowly, so I really get to be with the images for a while and when I am finished, the energy shifts. But in the meantime, I have gotten used to it being in my heart and head and when the conversation has fallen silent, I begin to let go…like parting from a dear friend. Sometimes it is easy, sometimes it isn’t.

This is the first one I have finished that I don’t have a title for. Usually the title shows up first or at the same time as the image…or certainly within the first few days of working on it. And it was that way with this one until half way through. I started to see it drift away, like watching clouds as they come together and make a lizard or a rearing horse and then disappear back into the blue. So while I thought
I had a title, I don’t. For right now, I figure I would just let it be and one will land soon. I am just happy with the final image.

Blogging is new to me and it puts me a little bit out of my comfort zone.
Okay, a lot out of my comfort zone. But I understand that my creative process with painting is about exercising my voice and I am seeing this as an opportunity to do just that.

It all began as a request to all of us local artists and musicians from Elsah Cort, who started the Three Rivers Artist’s Studio Tour. The Tour happens here in town at the end of March every other year. Artists open their studios and sometimes their homes to the public to share new work and theirs lives for one weekend.

My husband, Rick Badgley, who is a furniture maker, has been on the last five.
I have participated in four of the last five. The year I didn’t participate as an artist, I participated as a guest. It was inspiring to me to see the other artists, their creative process and their work. I realized how fortunate it is to be living in a place that had so many gifted people. I also had a new appreciation for just what Elsah had created here for us. Every tour is different as new artists join us, and loved ones leave. But the people who come to visit have been art lovers in the truest sense — they love experiencing and appreciating art!

The next Tour is March 19-20-21,  2010.

Hope to see you here!

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