O. Apachex

 

Illustrating a freshwater fish in its natural habitat, in a natural pose other than the usual water splash caught in mid-air from the muscle-arched body lunging toward a mayfly, mouth agape; the fisherman's wet dream of a perfect strike. This pose presented an exciting challenge of depicting above and below water landscapes in the same piece.

Small canyons with streams and cool blue-green pools do exist in the Sonoran Desert. The endangered Apache Trout thrived here, but interspecies competition with the Spotted Trout, stocked by humans, has reduced its domain to 25 miles of the Gila River, smaller tributaries, and adjacent parts of New Mexico. A fly fisherman in my past life, I like to spend time with good fishing spots, although these days it's with a sketchbook and camera. I try to spot what I can through the ripples, but the real telltale signs of trout are tiny fly lures and the glisten of fishing line in unreachable branches of trees around.

The trout is a notoriously difficult catch for a fisherman due to the miracle of its vision. The trout eye is engineered to deal with light refraction through the water's surface and is sensitive enough to see insects above water by the dim light of the stars. The trout can also see you unless you are crafty enough to be outside of its wide cone of vision.

Although the Apache Trout is not a current resident of the Sonoran Desert, I felt it appropriate to include it in my series considering the conservation efforts to restock this rare and wonderful inhabitant of our desert.

Prints for sale at patterntology.com

Islix Pinaleño

If you climb to a high elevation in the Southwest, besides the long unobstructed views, the flow of water over the landscape is pretty apparent. Arroyos (usually dry intermittent streams) fan out over the valleys like winding organic veins on their way downstream. This creates a beautiful fluvial fractalesque design. Multiple millennia of erosion. In this piece, I really wanted to express that texture.

Down here, mountains/mountain ranges are called "Sky Islands" (so... Islix). This is a section of the Pineleño range in southeast Arizona. Every biom from alpine to desert can be experienced hiking from top to bottom. They produce a lot of precipitation which races down into the valleys and that's when the infamous flash floods happen. Although, being the desert, they are usually dry and if you're hiking, you're most likely hiking in an arroyo.

Etching, 1987

It's funny that in my mid forties I'm doing work that most resembles work I did 27yrs ago in art school. I did a lot of etching back then, loved the black line, was fascinated with ruled lines, map markers and vaguely science-like notations. I've always liked that bird silhouette you find in bird identification books. I went through the flat files and found the last time I used that. Sometimes I wonder why I moved away from this work. I sold nearly every etching I made but thought that large scale abstracts were where it's at. Looking back, I can see how pure those etchings were. Truly my own. Well, it takes a long time to find yourself. The work I do now is truly my own.