Cat Creek Wood Print

Cat Creek was one of my earliest paintings, and one of the few modeled after a real place. Just a few miles off of highway 200 in central Montana, Cat Creek used to be (and perhaps, is again) an oil drilling outpost with a collection of kooky structures and junk strewn about in an irresistible fashion. And the context of crusty, Ponderosa-dotted hills and coolies in semi-isolation made for an unforgettable back road experience.

Visions of the Great Plains consists of drawings and watercolor paintings inspired by the American Great Plains, by Scott Kirby. Referred to as an accidental artist by Sandpoint Magazine, Kirby began painting in 2005, after 9 months of drawing with dual-tip brush pens. Although the attempts to capture these mostly imagined visions are quite intentional, the origins of Kirby's transition from music to art was, in a way, accidental, and unexpected. While drawing with his daughter Sara one afternoon, Kirby was suddenly compelled to continue into the night and following days, being bombarded by mental images which demanded expression. Weeks turned into months, and drawing turned into painting, all scenes rooted in a long relationship with...