Saturday, December 09, 2006

Photo of the Week

This week's photo is another flashback. I've always been an artist, to some degree or another. And when I was a kid I started drawing birds and animals. My father, who worked for the Department of Interior, brought me to his office one Saturday to meet wildlife artist Bob Hines, whose grayling painting is shown here. I was fascinated, here was this government office building filled with identical offices. Government issue desk, chair and bookcase. And then we get to Bob's and he's there in the middle of the deskless room painting a picture of a mule deer. Photos of mule deer clipped all around his (government issue) easel, half finished paintings and sketches tacked all over the room. It was surreal to me, and for the first time in my life it dawned on me: art could be a job. He spent some time with me and was gracious and supportive and I'll never forget it. Bob died in 1994 but his art is all over, including in many tiny collections around the world in the form of numerous duck stamps.

2 comments:

- Mike - said...

That's a beautiful painting. Grayling are a lovely fish.

Ed. said...

There is a glaring innacuracy in this painting, however. If that was my fly and a grayling lept out of the water like that, I would have jerked that rod and yanked that fly out of the area long before the grayling would be on his descent into the fly!