Dunrovin Ranch

THE Destination Ranch of Western Montana

Jeannette Wandler

Jeannette

Artist’s Website: www.createtheway.site

Artist’s Biography

I’ve been living the horse-centered lifestyle since I was six. My first horse, Whiskers, came with the house my parents purchased. I couldn’t saddle him and rode bareback in the mountains with my friends. As a teenager, I spent 3 summers working for an Arabian ranch and was paid with a little colt, Destiny’s Starr, whom I trained to ride, shake hands, bow, and give hugs. Both amazing horses have since moved into the lush pasture in the sky, but their images adorn my walls and remain in my heart.

As an adult, I worked for 8 years at a cutting horse facility. I started in the ranch class on my little mare Holly, affectionately known as “Bugs”. I worked 3 jobs to get her trained and I practiced on her at the same time. Most horses would have quit under that kind of pressure, but she has a big heart and a lot of “cow” and we went on to put some very good runs together. When she experienced chronic lameness issues, we retired.  She still keeps her eyes on the far-away cow herds, though.

Horses and animals are the subject of most of my art. I typically use acrylics and mixed media (I’m the person that saves little scraps of everything.) However, as an artist my focus isn’t so much on my creativity, but to guide others to explore their creativity. I facilitate mother and child artist collaborations, day-long journal making events for women, and art camps for children. At the beginning of every workshop people will say, “I can’t draw, except stick figures.” or “I’m not creative.” They leave saying: “I am going to buy my first canvas!’ or “This is something I can do at home!” This work is the sacred work that is most important to me, and I consider it my calling.

In addition, I’ve been a licensed teacher for 12 years with a Master’s Degree in Integrated Fine Arts & Education from the University of Montana, and a background in Social Work. I am a certified Laughter Yoga Leader. I’ve completed 40 immersion-hours in Himalayan Singing Bowls of Nepal and hold monthly sound baths in the valley.  I have certificates  from Mindful Schools and am trained to teach their curriculum.

I have been married to Mike for 8 years and we are kept busy with our garden, horses, dogs, cats, ducks, sheep and our beloved turkeys, Jolene and Schmitty

Artist’s Statement Regarding the Horse of a Different Color

I chose a mandala-style design because it is a visual symbolism found throughout history in many different cultures. It can represent a form of meditation, be a symbol of the universe, or a reminder of the cycles of life. As in meditation, riding involves both the seat and the breath. One must be ever mindful and present when collaborating with a horse. Creating a mandala on a horse seems like a sublime way to explore mindfulness, creativity, and our partnership with the equine spirit.

Artist’s Concepts Regarding the Horse of a Different Color 

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Artist’s Dunrovin Equine artistic Partner: Chief

Chief with NoTrim

Purchase tickets for Horse of a Different Color
on August 19, 2017, at Dunrovin Ranch!

Julie T. Chapman

Girlpower

Artist’s Website: www.julietchapman.com

Artist’s Biography

I adored horses, but never had one as a kid (even though I grew up on a small family farm in Ohio! the injustice of it all…). I loved science, math, and art, so – naturally enough – got an engineering degree and went to work for HP in northern California after college. There I finally got into horses, and competed in dressage and 3-day eventing for years.

Despite long hours in R&D and marketing at HP, I never stopped drawing. Winning the 2003 Arts for the Parks $50,000 Grand Prize kicked me in the butt in many ways, so we moved from California to Montana, and I became a full-time artist. I already knew and loved Yellowstone and Glacier for wildlife reference material, but in Montana I discovered the joys of small-town summertime rodeo (color! drama! horses in action!).

I recently made my first trip to Africa – the holy grail for wildlife artists – and fell in love with the beauty and diversity of the animals there. I’m enjoying exploring African subject matter in my scratchboards and paintings, and I can’t wait to return.

I’m very privileged to have work in museums and collections in the U.S., Canada, Europe, and Asia, and to be juried or invited into a number of national and international shows annually (subscribing to my Artzine will keep you abreast of my event calendar). I’m also honored to be represented by a wonderful coterie of galleries in the U.S. and abroad (see the list above). My sincere thanks go to the ever-increasing number of collectors who have brought my work into their homes – they inspire me to keep growing!

RECENT HIGHLIGHTS

2016: FIVE different articles in 5 different publications! (see Biblio)
2016: Steel Dust Award (best of show) — America’s Horse in Art, Amarillo, TX
2014 – 2015: Wild 100- National Museum of Wildlife Art, Jackson, WY
2012: Birds in Art – Leigh Yawkey Woodson Museum of Art, Wausau, WI
2012-2013: David Shepherd Wildlife Artist of the Year Exhibition – London
2011: Cover, December issue of Southwest Art
2011: Best of Show (Flatwork) – Calgary Stampede Western Showcase art auction
2011: “Wild West – Beauty of the Beast” (an invitational of 5 painters and 5 sculptors) – Rockwell Museum of Western Art

MUSEUM & PUBLIC COLLECTIONS

2006 Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum – Wausau, WI
2005 Lookout Mountain Nature Center – Golden, CO
2005 Hilton Garden Inn – Missoula, MT
2004 Commission for the Baltimore Ravens NFL team – Baltimore, MD
2002 The Wildlife Experience – Denver, CO
2002 Hiram Blauvelt Museum – Oradell, NJ

S E L E C T E D NATIONAL & INTERNATIONALJURIED, MUSEUM & INVITATIONAL EXHIBITIONS

2014-17 America’s Horse in Art – Amarillo, TX
2015 The Horse in Contemporary Art – Dorset, England
2015-17 Southeastern Wildlife Expo – Charleston, SC
2012-13 David Shepherd Wildlife Artist of the Year exhibition – London, UK
2011-17 Cheyenne Frontier Days Western Art Show – Cheyenne, WY
2010-14 Calgary Stampede Western Art Show & Auction – Calgary, BC, Canada
2008-15 Panhandle Plains Museum Invitational – Amarillo, TX
2006-15 C.M. Russell Auction – Great Falls, MT
2004-15 Western Visions / Wild 100 – National Museum of Wildlife Art, Jackson, WY
2011 “Beauty of the Beast”: 5 Sculptors & 5 Painters – Rockwell Museum, Corning, NY
2007 “Out West, The Great American Landscape”, Meridian Internat’l – China
2003, ’06, ’12 Birds in Art – Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum, Wausau, WI

Artist’s Statement Regarding Horse of a Different Color

My concept is based on the Indian ‘color’ holiday Holi, which uses colored cornstarch powder flung over participants. The “Color Run” fun runs here in the US borrow from that idea. I plan to use colored cornstarch powders and chalk paint (used by kids to decorate themselves, sidewalks, etc.) to create an abstract design, borrowing a bit from Jackson Pollock, on whichever horse I’m assigned. My color choices would depend on the color of the horse. A chestnut would probably get a lot of turquoise and yellow powder; a bay would get chartreuse and blue; a black horse would get ‘hot’ colors (magenta, orange, yellow) with some cool color thrown in. Chalk paint would be used for thin lines and drips. Please note that I do not intend to actually “fling” powder onto the horse; it can be applied by hand or by sifting lightly. I would experiment with color powder on both dry and wet areas of the coat. Given all that, any sketch I submit can only be a very rough approximation of the actual outcome.

Artist’s Concepts Regarding Horse of a Different Color

Julie Chapman

Artist’s Dunrovin Equine Artistic Partner: Butte

Butte collage

Purchase tickets for Horse of a Different Color
on August 19, 2017, at Dunrovin Ranch!

A Dunrovin Totem?

Recently I returned to my second home state, Alaska. When I lived in Alaska, I called myself a misplaced Montanan; and now that I am back in Montana, I sometime refer to myself as an away Alaskan. In truth I belong to both states. I call myself a Montanalaskan. They hold tightly to my heart and my spirit. I carry them both deep in my bones.

As a biometrician working for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, I was able to experience Alaska as few do.  My work took me on countless field trips to nearly every mountain range, every river drainage, every small village, and the few bigger cities in the state. I spend hundreds of hours in small airplanes, helicopters, river boats, ocean going vessels, on snow machines and on foot hiking throughout the state. I know Alaska’s waters, mountains, tundras, and forests. My experiences span Alaska’s two primary seasons: winter and the Fourth of July. I have done much the same in Montana, although here my preferred mode of transportation is clearly that of riding one of my steadfast and back country savvy steeds.

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The first stop on my Alaska trip was Sitka. During a quiet walk through the coastal trail of the Sitka National Historical Park with my longtime friend, Susan, I was once again spell bound by the beauty and the significance of the Tlingit and Haida totem poles standing silently among the towering spruce trees. Totems are sacred, religious symbols created by different clans, families, or groups honoring their relationship to their worlds – their worlds filled with the animals that sustained them physically, emotionally, and spiritually. These are beautifully carved works of arts clearly and loudly proclaims the creator’s reverence for and attachment to the animals depicted. These monuments sing to me. I feel the power of the connections between the animals and the totems’ carvers. The depth of their gratitude to, and reverence for, the animals portrayed is obvious to all.

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The totem images haunt my imagination. I envy America’s first nations’ closeness with nature, their intimacy with the seasons, the plants, the animals, their knowledge of the stars and the waters and the wind, their oneness with their surroundings. Modern cultures seem intent on isolating us from nature’s embrace, sheltering us from the natures’ moods and disassociating us from all that the natural world entails – both the challenges and the joys. This is not meant to be. Human nature is really one with nature. Our separation is felt deeply, whether we recognize it for such or not. Our souls grieve its loss, with that grief commonly being expressed in unhealthy ways.

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Those of us lucky enough to reside in places like Montana, where we continue to live close to the land with animals surrounding us, still have some tenuous threads to those ancient feelings, those ancient ways of knowing. Our daily lives reverberate with nature’s demands and glories. I give thanks for this way of live.

My mind plays with the prospect of a Dunrovin totem. To which animals would we pay homage? Clearly the ospreys would have to be included as their presence practically defines a Dunrovin summer season. Horses would most certainly be prominently featured as they are nearly our reason being who and what we are. Dogs have been our livelong companions and guides. Bears have been the focus of intense study by my husband and the source of endless hours of fascination and delight. Salmon and trout have lured us to river after river in both Montana and Alaska to seek their schools and grace our tables with sustenance. Yes, I think that Dunrovin would be the clan of the horse, dog, bear, trout/salmon, and osprey.

What animals would appear on YOUR totem? Why are those animals important to you?

 

Midnight Camera Caress

20160527_00-56-09A sleeping animal naturally invokes feelings of tenderness. We rarely see unknown or wild animals sleeping. Our house pets and pasture friends know us to be allies that would do them no harm, thus allowing us to this intimacy. But our mere presence stirs wild animals to alertness and prevents them from the total relaxation required to let their minds turn off and enter the other whelm that sleep induces.

Our web camera and infrared light give us a special glimpse into the world of the two beautiful ospreys that occupy the Dunrovin nest. It is a privilege to catch them at their most vulnerable, to stealthy watch as their chests and feathers silently rise and fall with each unhurried, rhythmic breath.

My own midnight stirring recently took me from by bed to casually check on Harriet with the camera. They she was with rain drops neatly formed on her feathers, totally at peace, keeping her two eggs snug and warm under her body as she slept. I could not help but wonder what images drifted through her mind and what strange osprey stories formed in her dream world. In many ways, her last few nights of incubating her eggs are much like the final days of a woman’s pregnancy. The calm before the storm of caring for young ensues. Does she know this? Does she await the events that are soon to take place? How can we think that she would not understand and anticipate the hatching of her eggs, the caring of her chicks, and the struggles that will soon engulf both her and Hal as they strive to feed and teach their young.

If I have learned anything from watching these ospreys so closely for the last five years, it is that the life of an osprey is no less complex, no less paradoxical, and no less a jumble of nature and nurture threads that would be impossible to unravel than is our own human existence. They are a marvel to be studied, and ultimately to be revered. They pull us into the fabric of our own primal selves and remind us from whence we came and who we are. Our sleep is not less rhythmic than theirs. We are no less vulnerable. We are no less vigilant in the presence of the unknown. We are made from the same organic molecules, seek the same necessities of life, and rejoice in the same accomplishments of raising our families. We are as one with the ospreys.

The Magic of Mason Bees

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Each year Montana Public Radio hosts a fund raising event to help finance their programs. They cajole their listeners into donating money to support their favorite radio shows and they offer what they call premiums for making donations at certain levels. These premiums are gifts that local listeners contribute and are, more often than not, eclectic, unique, homemade items that end up being loads for fun for all involved – the giver, the receiver, and fellow listeners. Odd sounding, off the wall, engaging premiums have become a signature of Montana Public Radio’s annual fundraising events and have served to make thousands of connections throughout the community.

Dunrovin Ranch has been both a giver and a receiver of these premiums. In fact, one of our loveliest assets came to us via a Montana Public Radio premium. When we first moved to Dunrovin, we had almost no experience with orchards and flowering trees. Upon making our first donation to Montana Public Radio, Sterling decided that he would select a premium that consisted of a scion from a listener’s apple tree that purportedly produced the most delicious apples imaginable to be grafted onto our own apple tree. Well, this sounded like a hoot. We had never imaged grafting one tree to another, and we we anxious to learn.

On the appointed day, a delightful gentleman arrived at Dunrovin with several scions in hand and set about to graft them to our tree while we watched and asked all sort of simple minded questions revealing our total ignorance of managing an orchard. He was most patient and most helpful. Not only did he complete his appointed task, but he asked us if we had cultivated any orchard mason bees. Well, of course not. We had never even heard of mason orchard bees, and we certainly had no idea of how to culture them. After listening to him extol their many virtues which included that they are native to Montana, very shy, do not live in hives, and do not sting, we were eager to lure them to our newly planted orchard. This meant simply installing a “bee box” with individual holes drilled, and supplying a source of moist clay for them to use to plug their individual nests.

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This man was so generous and so committed to getting us get going, that he returned the next week with a couple of bee boxes that he had built. They were immediately installed on the side of our log home, and for two years, I faithfully maintained a pot with moist clay right under them to give the bees access to the mud essential for their homes. Sure enough, within several years, we had hordes of mason bees anxious to pollinate our ever growing number of both true fruit bearing and ornamental fruit trees. Happily, our orchard routinely produces an abundance of cherries, apples, pears, and plums each year. In addition, the scion that was grafted more than lived up to it billing. We routinely fight over who gets the apples from that part of the tree!

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Regrettably, I do not remember the name of this kind and very knowledgeable man who grafted the scion to our apple tree and who helped us so many years ago to get mason orchard bees established at Dunrovin. But I do remember his wonderful personality. And I remember his great Montana story which is not atypical of others who live here. When we asked him what he did, he immediately responded by saying, ” Well, I am a poet. That is what I am, but I can’t make a living as a poet. So, I make my living as a carpenter and I moved here to live amid the Montana mountains that inspire my poetry. Fruit trees are my passion.” Thank you, Montana Public Radio, for bringing this most remarkable man to Dunrovin.

These many years later, our population of mason bees flourishes and bewitches all of our spring guests. As the flowering crab apple trees that surround our guest lodging bloom, the trees come alive with the sound of the thousands of mason bees busily visiting each and every bloom. Kids of all ages – from two to ninety – stand entranced beneath the trees and listen. They just listen to the overwhelming buzz knowing full well that they are in no danger from these friendly little insects. It’s pure magic! You can listen for yourself!