SAGEBRUSH & STONE

Visionary Landscapes from Grand Teton and Yellowstone

At the heart of my Sagebrush and Stone series is a deep reverence for the land - its ancient geologies, its quiet endurance, and its ongoing transformation. These paintings reflect my continued exploration of visionary landscapes: works that bridge the physical world with the imagined, inviting viewers to contemplate not only what we see, but how we relate to the earth beneath us.

Inspired by my time wandering the landscapes of Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks, this series celebrates the rugged beauty of stone, the subtle tenacity of sagebrush, and the stories carried in rock formations shaped over millennia. Beneath the towering peaks and beneath our feet lie histories written in layers of earth - a geology that holds memory far older than our human presence.

Throughout this series, I’ve incorporated motifs of obelisks and archways - forms that function both as thresholds and markers. These shapes echo the verticality of standing stones and the natural portals found in the land itself: carved by water and time, spires reaching skyward. They serve as visual symbols of passage, spiritual connections to the land, and transformation - reminders of the layered relationships between earth, sky, and human imagination.

These paintings honor that these lands are not just beautiful wildernesses, but sacred homelands. Long before they were marked on maps as parks, they were - and remain - territories of deep cultural, spiritual, and ecological significance to Indigenous Nations including the Shoshone, Bannock, Blackfeet, Crow, Flathead, Gros Ventre, Nez Perce, Sioux, and others. Their stewardship reminds us of a more reciprocal relationship to place - one built on respect, care, and kinship.

Through this work, I invite viewers to pause and consider our place within these vast timelines - not as conquerors or mere visitors, but as participants in an ongoing dialogue with the living earth. These landscapes ask us to listen: to the wind through sagebrush, to the rivers carving stone, to the mountains standing watch. They ask us to remember that we, too, are shaped by time, by place, and by the ground beneath our feet.