The beginning idea was a metal hook.

If the desert were a sea and the crops that men extracted form the  harsh land became alive in a different way, those patterns of life would feed hearts and spirits when seen from the sky. I saw these patterns flying above Utah, coming back from California and imagined their colors.

I love taking photographs of land patterns, more precisely crop patterns, when we fly. They tell the story of the interaction of men and the landscapes they live in. I choose a few patterns and transform them  with colors, and their new stories become different, yet  anchored still in landscape.

I was told once that there is a right way and a wrong way to lay your cowboy hat when you take it off and place on a surface. The opening up is right. I wanted to play with the idea and make it somewhat abstract, playful and cheerful. A Mountain blue bird is the symbol of spring in the West.

1909: “The Original Wyoming Cowboy” riding a bucking bronco “straight up.”

My painting is inspired by the original photograph of a cowboy riding his bronco at the Cheyenne rodeo taken by a Union Pacific photographer named Stimson. The cowboy is Ed McCarty on his Wyoming native horse Silver City. The photograph was the source of inspiration for the Wyoming license plate design. The artist was Allen True, and Lester Hunt, then Wyoming secretary of State, was credited with the idea of a bronc rider. The image was  reversed for probably legal reasons. In doing so the rider and his horse became a generic image and not the portrait of Mr McCarty who was from Goldsmith, Wyoming. He became a champion bronc rider in 1919.

I like the nostalgia of the surroundings with its empty open space. I added bright colors to anchor the memory.