While
living in Boulder, CO (and tying flies at Hank Roberts
Sport Shop), Drew Holl offered me a show at his
prestigeous Crossroads of Sport gallery in Manhattan.
It was a very heady experience! My parents attended
the opening and were very proud of their little boy.
Jack Sampson of Field & Stream attended as well.
A few years
later, I had the honor of seeing one of my watercolors
(framed with a Polly Rosborough stone fly) shown in
William Cushner's amazing display of The Art of the Fly at
Madison Square Garden.
On the
occasion of the remarkably successful recovery of the
greenback cutthroat, I was commissioned by Rocky Mountain
National Park to paint a narrative display to help
visiting anglers to differenciate between the threatened
natives and the alien fontinalis.
A very
successful show at Angler's Art in Cherry Creek, CO was
attended by rodmakers Steve Jenkins and Michael Clark,
authors John Gierach and A. K. Best, and another hero of
mine, artist Eldridge Hardie.
During my
Montana years, Bud Lilly allowed me to be the first
non-Montana native to show in his gallery at the Trout
Shop in West Yellowstone. Bud later bought my
original watercolors for Varley and Schullery's
"Freshwater Wilderness" for the Pat Lilly
Memorial Art Gallery in the FFF National Headquarters in
West Yellowstone, Montana.
My years in
Livingston saw the creation of over 100 "Bar
Flies" at the Murray Hotel...no, not what you'd
think...these were portraits of local angling luminaries
(along with a good measure of visiting cebrities).
The portraits were shadowboxed along with a fly and
signature by the subjects.
When the
Museum of American Fly Fishing brought their amazing show
"Anglers All" to the Museum of the Rockies, I
was asked to show my large lithograph, Bull Trout and
Sculpin" to help flesh out the Rockie Mountain aspect
of fly fishing history. But literally and
figuratively, the painting of a 27' X 11' mural at the
International Fly Fishing Center in Livingston was by far
my biggest achievement!
