Running Eagle Falls in Glacier National Park is named for Pitamaka, "Running Eagle," a Blackfeet woman who performed her vision ceremony at the site in the early 1800s. Pitamaka became a warrior of great renown, even keeping a place in her father's warriors' council lodge. Running Eagle Falls remains a site of significance to the Blackfeet people to this day.
    This painting shows a group of young Blackfeet men passing in front of the falls, and spotting a red tailed hawk--a holy omen. I love this site in Glacier--the loud rush of the cold water and the rising mist are just amazing. It is almost magical how the slanted stones of the falls turn from flinty grey in direct sunlight to a warm, luminescent blue-orange at dawn or sunset. I often use golden sunlight in my work, and on the sloping shelves of stone it just seemed perfect.

Last weekend during an appearance/reception at Summer Wine Gallery in Oklahoma City, I was approached by a husband and wife who had bought two of my paintings and had come to meet me. The wife immediately gave me a very sweet hug, and excitedly told me that she had wanted to "come see you in person to see if you had the same spirit that we sensed in your art." Unfortunately, there had been times that other artists had not been kind or gracious to them in-person, and she had hoped that her emotional response to two paintings would be confirmed by my real-life personality. But in this case, there was yet another reason why her emotions toward these paintings had become so important to the wife.

She and her husband had lost their entire house and all their possessions in a tornado four years ago. In the calamity, her husband had to actually drive a truck into the rubble of the house to rescue her. This trauma had such a deep impact on her that she had lost many of her former memories.

While looking at the paintings in Summer Wine Gallery, my painting of colorful stones in a stream leading toward a range of mountains caught her attention.

"Honey, do I have a memory of this place?", she asked her husband.
"Yes, you do. We went there together, and you've been barefoot right in that very water," he told her.
And this memory began to return to her.

So told me that seeing this painting had helped her renew a happy memory that had been lost because of trauma, and that she needed to have the art in her house to represent healing.

She asked if she could hug me again (who could say no to that?), and thanked me over and over. Of course, I thanked her for supporting my work, and for sharing such a personal story with me. I asked for her permission to share this story, and she was very eager that I do.