Just before my 90th birthday on March 20, a BOSCO artist suggested I take down the art on my walls gathered from around the world and put up my own. I did that, for the first time, and then decided to sell my art to benefit two charities, one to education of girls in Africa the other for the undocumented in Idaho. To my amazement, in four hours we raised over $5,000. I had in effect converted my home into BOSCO space. So why not apply myself? Although I’ve photographed all my life, it was not until Covid that I slowed down, began hiking an iconic landmark above my home, Table Rock, and began photographing the rock and lichen hidden in its crevices. Boise artists I respect have called them abstract art in natural form. That’s what’s most prominent on my walls—lichen on rock in framed arrays of nine 10X10’s and sets of three 9X16’s. I then quickly inventoried my photo archives and assembled four new sets of nine, this time 8X10s: nine vibrant doors from a small town in France; nine weathered doors from Idaho ghost towns and abandoned buildings; nine images from the paint table of a Buenos Aires artist; and—most popular of all—nine weathered walls from Havana, Cuba. This has been such a great experience I am applying to do exactly the same thing next October within BOSCO and, again, for the benefit of one or more charities.
I grew up in Idaho Falls in a family that owned a radio station and a newspaper andwith a mother and sister who painted mostly flowers and mountains and decorated. My professional life took me to the nation's capital for 30 years (Senator Frank Church, Peace Corps, law practice) where I was gifted with the Smithsonian, Corcoran and Phillips and other collections. Typically, I learned my way through the Impressionists, Asian art and slowly into modern art. It was only recently that I became excited by Joan Mitchell, Richard Diebencorn, Marcia Meyer, Marsden Hartley and others like them. Traveling has come to mean museums. I am an amateur's amateur: no publications or awards. But I look closely at nature and the built world for patterns, colors and relationships, pretty much unceasingly. What a world! In 1985 I returned from DC to my home town where, while managing a TV station and then a daily newspaper, I jumped at chances to support the arts: raise money for a Steinway for our largest auditorium, to convert a cinema into a performing arts center and gallery and as principal fund raiser for the Elkhorn Music Festival, now the Sun Valley Festival. Photography as art is the principal excitement of my life today.
