My Heart Leaps Up

Dear Deer

5" x 7"

Watercolor

My heart leaps up when I behold

A rainbow in the sky:

So was it when my life began;

So is it now I am a man;

So be it when I shall grow old,

Or let me die!

---William Wordsworth

Life brings those moments where Wordsworth's poem expresses our own responses to experiences that make our hearts leap up and take our breath away.  Last Sunday I was walking through a wooded section around a lake here in Omaha with my brother Robert. We were enjoying conversation while strolling along the bike/walking path.  Suddenly I looked up and my heart leapt up while I froze!  Right beside the path grazing on some tree leaves within reach was a beautiful doe.  She was calm and eyed us cautiously, but her curiosity caused her to move closer in my direction.  For several minutes we enjoyed watching her graceful movements and sleek beauty.

Yellowstone River Deer

9" x 12"

Pastel

If you are not moved by the grand moments in nature, whether large or small, something is dead inside of you. We should rather die than loose the sensitivity to the wonder in creation that William Wordsworth spoke of in his poem.  The other day I came around the corner of the house and spied a special moment for a squirrel in the large oak tree.  Here is what I captured from that moment:

Out on a Limb

Watercolor

And here's a little watercolor sketch I captured of an American Goldfinch at my birdbath outside my studio door:

Birdbath Bather

Watercolor

Another moment when I felt my heart leaping, er....rather pounding, was when I climbed 14, 259 ft. Long's Peak in the Colorado Rocky Mountains.  It wasn't that I was out of shape, but that the sheer view downward in places was raising my pulse! 

 A very brave lady named Isabella Bird experienced the same reaction over 100 years before I made my climb.  She wrote in her wonderful book A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains describing her feelings going up Long's Peak:  

Slipping, faltering, gasping from the exhausting toil in the rarefied air, with throbbing hearts and panting lungs, we reached the top of the gorge and squeezed ourselves between two gigantic fragments of rock by a passage called the "Dog's Lift", when I climbed on the shoulders of one man and then was hauled up.  This introduced us ...to a narrow shelf of considerable length, rugged, uneven, and so overhung by the cliff in some places that it is necessary to crouch to pass at all.....But there, and on the final, and to my thinking, the worst part of the climb, one slip, and a breathing, thinking, human being would lie 3,000 feet below, a shapeless, bloody heap!

Did that get your heart rate going faster?  Stay with me....we're almost to the top!

Scaling, not climbing, is the correct term for this last ascent.  It took one hour to accomplish 500 feet, pausing for breath every minute or two.  The only foothold was in narrow cracks or on minute projections on the granite.  To get a toe in these cracks, or here or there on a scarcely obvious projection, while crawling on hands and knees, all the while tortured with thirst and gasping and struggling for breath, this was the climb;  but at last the Peak was won. 

Isabella Bird was a brave, adventurous lady who wrote about many other exploits in the wilderness in her book.  Believe it or not, she did it all without a cell phone or GPS to guide her!  May her tribe increase.  Get outdoors and let your heart do some leaping this week!

Be brave and courageous!

Spies for God: On Paying Attention

Snowy Range Country

6" x 8"

Oil

Recently I just returned from hiking with family members in the Snowy Range of southern Wyoming.  All around me in every direction beauty was to be seen in distant snow-capped peaks, wildflowers were rampant with color, cold mountain lakes mirrored the rugged landscape and sky, and the air was crisp.  Delight filled my eyes and soul!  And I didn't miss the Internet for one moment!!  Aha...yes, the encroaching digital world was far and away, but my whole being felt ALIVE and full, very satisfied.  Follow me up the path here with some thoughts from my recent adventure.

The novelist, Wallace Stegner, wrote:  "Wilderness is the context in which the individual makes a contact with the universe."  Getting away from it all is a needed element to our humaness.  Author and poet Luci Shaw writes, "When our technology separates us from, or interrupts, natural processes, we lose our sense of their value and beauty, and once again we become dangerously self-absorbed."

Snowy Range, Wyoming

Being outdoors in nature on a consistent basis keeps us anchored to truth and beauty.  And it can be found not far outside our front doors.  Annie Dillard writes in her book Pilgrim At Tinker Creek, "I am sitting under a sycamore by Tinker Creek.  I am really here, alive on the intricate earth under trees.  But under me, directly under the weight of my body on the grass, are other creatures, just as real, for whom also this moment, this tree, is 'it'.  Take just the top inch of soil, the world squirming right under my palms.  In the top inch of forest soil, biologists found 'an average of 1,356 living creatures present in each square foot.....Had an estimate also been made of the microscopic population, it might have ranged up to  two billion bacteria and many millions of fungi, protozoa and algae---in a mere teaspoonful of soil.'"

Dragonfly-Omaha's Lauritzen Gardens

From the grand to the small, God's craftsmanship is readily observed, felt, or heard.  Luci Shaw in her book Water My Soul alludes to Annie Dillard's alertness to nature by saying, "We Christians should be, with Annie Dillard, spies, scouts on the lookout for evidences of God at work in the universe.  Our tools?  Alertness, a willingness to wait and allow their reality to penetrate us, and time taken to look and to see and record."  

Blue Heron-Walnut Creek Recreation Area, Omaha, NE

It does take time.  And we all are juggling the demands of everyday life, family, work, and the now ever-present distraction of the Internet/social media.  But I encourage you for the sake of your own self and those you influence, be alert, be out there, and  be beholding the created world around us.  The rewards far exceed the price you pay in time!

Daniel Goleman wrote, "...people who are self-reflective---who take time out to pray or to meditate or have some way of being in nature regularly, who spend time being with themselves and have a rich interior life---are better able to pay full attention to other people."

Einstein said, "Never lose a holy curiousity!"  So... get out and be a spy for God this week!  Go be amazed!!!

American Goldfinch-seen outside my studio door this week

Be brave and courageous!

Horses Inside The Bell Place Shoppes

134 N. Washington St. (84th St./Omaha), Papillion, NE

Would you believe it?  Horses are inside The Bell Place Shoppes here in downtown Papillion, a suburb of Omaha, NE.  How did they get inside and what is going on?  And what does that have to do with Bonnie Patterson Fine Art?  Follow me inside The Bell Place Shoppes and you'll figure things out right away....

This morning was spent getting the place ready for the horses.  My good friend and manager of The Bell Place Shoppes, Lonnie Theer, helped me greatly.  

Here you can see the first horse being placed.  And then comes more....

We managed to get all the horses, cow dogs, mountain lions, Bighorn sheep, cats, and cowboys hung and leveled up.  If you are in the Omaha area any time soon, stop by and you'll be able to see a good body of my artwork on exhibit at The Bell Place Shops.

Two good friends have encouraged me in this endeavor.  Let me give a shout-out first to Kim Shaw, owner/artist of Photo Art by Kim.  My art display is in a room next door to her studio.  Kim has encouraged me to get involved in the downtown setting.  She has a real gift of taking old photos and painting life-like replicas on canvas.  If you have some old photos around that are fading, you should get in touch with Kim.  You'd be amazed how she can bring the subject matter back to full color and life under her brushwork!  You can contact Kim at her website:   www.photoartbykim.vpweb.com or on Facebook at Photo Art by Kim.

The other person who has been a big encouragement and help from The Bell Place Shoppes is Lonnie Theer.  Lonnie has a studio on the other side of my art display room called The Sawdust Factory and Sauce Shop.  Lonnie is a highly skilled woodworking artisan and also a connoisseur of fine sauces which he sells in his shop.  Here are some samples of his work:

Lonnie's shop is a delight to visit and keep updated on as he is always working on fresh designs and projects.  He does custom work, as well.  He can be contacted at Theer Creative via Facebook.  

Be bold and courageous!

Getting Into Gear

The Fourth of July weekend brings back vivid memories of wheat harvest in Colorado. Even though I drew this sketch from corn harvest time, it was the same truck that I shifted gears in thousands of times over the years for both harvests.  Soon harvest will be starting again once the wheat dries enough.  To commemorate the hard work of farmers and their families, I thought I would post a series of sketches out of my sketchbooks from across the years I helped drive a grain truck during harvests.  Waiting between times for the combine to dump into the grain tractor which in turn dumped into my grain truck provided me with great time to sketch, read, and observe the great outdoors.

Anytime we attempt to move forward and take good action in our lives involves getting into gear.  Otherwise you are idling and not going anywhere fast.  Talk is cheap but steady, intentional progress in the areas of our goals is powerful action towards success in outcome. The famous Aesop's fable about the tortoise and the hare reminds us vividly that "slow and steady wins the race".  May this week find us all "getting into gear", taking that first action, then the next, and then momentum kicks in!

Happy Fourth of July to you all!  I'm off to climb 12,000 ft. Medicine Bow Peak in Wyoming's Snowy Range that day with my brother Robert and niece Noelle, plus my sons Elijah and Joe!

Be bold and courageous!