The Art of the Wild by Dede Cummings & Green Writers Press

t h e a rt o f t h e W i l d

photographs by stephen gorman

st e p h e n g o r m a n | st e p h e n g o r m a n. c o m

An American Vision

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en i was in ninth grade, my class went on a field trip to the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts. I followed my teacher into the museum as I had once followed my parents into other formal settings—reluctantly. I felt claustrophobic, as if the room was airless and the walls were pressing in upon me. I just wanted to be outdoors in the Berkshire Mountain countryside. I’ve been to museums. Let me out! At the Clark there were paintings by Goya and Turner, Corot and Cassatt. The docent spoke about the Barbizon School, but I paid scant attention. And while some of the paintings were colorful and beautifully crafted, the rest seemed to lack worthwhile subject matter. Surely life held more interesting topics than Sargent’s Portrait of Carolus-Duran, or Renoir’s The Onions. I shook my head and moved on down the corridor to another collection, and when I looked up it was as if someone had suddenly snapped on the lights in a darkened room. The painting was by an artist named Frederick Remington, and it showed a lone American Indian on horseback on a cold snowy night somewhere in the wild heart of the Great Plains. Although the scene was nocturnal, the man and his horse cast a sharp moonlight shadow upon the snow. Both man and horse peered at the twinkling lights of campfires

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Th e A rt o f t h e Wi l d Stephen Gorman

in a wooded draw some snow-covered miles away. The man leaned slightly forward at the waist, and he held his rifle at the ready across his saddle. His horse stood tense and ready, and his ears pointed sharply towards the distant fires as he listened closely while exhaling a cloud of frosty breath. What on earth...? I moved closer to the painting and looked at the title. It was called The Scout: Friends or Enemies? I stepped back slightly and studied the man’s fringed skin jacket and his fur hat with a single eagle feather. His ocher blanket was fastened around his waist by a cartridge belt. His face was unafraid, yet revealed nothing. And then I looked where the scout was looking, at the yellow campfires twinkling in the cottonwood draw. Are they his people? What if it’s Custer and the Seventh Cavalry? How can he tell from here? It was clear that whatever the scout did next would determine whether he lived or died. I felt as if I were watching a drama unfold, and that everything in the painting -the man’s clothing, the horse’s stance, and the way the moonlight reflected off the endless snowy plains-was crucial to the tale. The painting was so authentic. The sharply rendered details gave me confidence that the story was true. It was as if Remington had been there. At the Clark I was also introduced to, and captivated by, the work of Winslow Homer. Homer’s work also showed an intimate, firsthand knowledge of the American wilderness and the men and women who lived on the land. For a long time I stood before Two Guides, a painting that showed two Adirondack Mountain guides carrying axes and standing among freshly cut trees on a warm summer day. The older guide was pointing out something in the distance. I wanted to hear what the older guide was saying, and see what he was pointing towards. Here on canvas was exactly what I wanted to experience and understand. Looking at the paintings, I sensed that both artists had

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spent much of their lives outdoors. Surely they had known the crunch of new snow under their boots, felt the sting of salty spray in their eyes, smelled the sweat of men and horses after a long hard ride, and thrilled to the electric impulse of a line going tight to a leaping trout. With their depictions of agate-eyed cavalrymen charging across the sun-scorched plains, of guides and woodsmen in the forests and lakes, of hunters and trappers in the mountains, of men and women of all backgrounds hard at work on the American land, I knew Remington and Homer would teach me a great deal about the America I wanted to know. American art is about telling the American story. As art historian Robert Hughes writes, “Americans, like any other people, inscribe their histories, beliefs, attitudes, desires and dreams in the images they make.”

Th e A rt o f t h e Wi l d Stephen Gorman

Under Open Skies

n the high country chill of a wyoming morning, I pulled on my scuffed boots and buckled on my worn jeans. Still half asleep, I stumbled out of the bunkhouse to the corral. Cathy, the top hand, was saddling her favorite horse, Spinnaker. At twenty-three, she was seven years my senior, and I was more than a little in awe of her. In the darkness I felt the soft, wet velvet of old Roman’s nose nuzzling my hand. Stroking his bay withers, I could see the savage white streaks where a grizzly bear had laid the old mustang’s back wide open. We swam the horses across Sunlight Creek, the same stream Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce followed out of Yellowstone on their heroic flight from the U.S. Army a hundred years earlier, and then we climbed through the lodgepole pines up to an open meadow under the rimrock. First light tinged the high Absaroka. Frost tinkled under the horse’s hooves, and they blew cold smoke with every breath. In the meadow we startled a bull moose with a massive rack who vanished like mist into the cover of the pines. Sometime later we watched a coyote lope home from the evening’s hunt. The herd was up Panther Creek, not far from an abandoned Indian camp we had found one day while riding after strays. Though the lodgeskins had rotted in the intervening century, the lodgepoles were still in place, and that day we rode in silent wonder among a dozen skeletal teepees. Whose lodges were they? Why were they left in place, as if the owners were fleeing some dreaded terror? Those days on horseback were filled with magic and mystery, sweat and toil. My wages reflected my status—$100 a month plus

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bunk and board—but my real pay was spending time under open skies deep in the North American outback, learning timeless skills from proud mentors, and listening to the stories they told. My boss, an old cowboy named Doc, told me the tale of Liver-Eatin’ Johnston, a mountain man who waged a personal war against the entire Crow Indian nation. Firelight flickered over rifles and saddle blankets on the cabin’s log walls, on scalp locks dangling from the wooden beams, as Doc told how Johnston—upon whose life the Robert Redford film Jeremiah Johnson was based— had set his traps right here in these Absaroka mountain streams. One night Fred Garlow, Buffalo Bill Cody’s grandson, kept me spellbound with stories about the old days in the northern Rockies. On another occasion an elderly woman who had been born in a covered wagon and raised in a sod hut told me about pioneer life on the western Nebraska frontier. Listening to these stories, I felt the power of the enduring relationships that connected the people to the land and to each other, and I experienced a deep sense of well being, even exhilaration, as I absorbed the narratives. These stories were my stories too, I realized, they were my inheritance, and they instilled in me a powerful sense of identity and purpose. Somewhere along the way I picked up a camera and a pen and began recording these epic American stories and celebrating these powerful moments, people, and places. I wanted to share them with others, and I wanted to inspire others to learn about and protect our precious natural inheritance and the distinctly North American rural cultures that it nurtures. Over the years I’ve traveled from Davis Strait to the Chukchi Sea, from the Everglades to the Mojave, from the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of Alaska. Along the way I’ve had the honor of working and traveling and sharing stories and unforgettable experiences with men and women who embody the qualities that as a nation we profess to admire most: courage, self-reliance, wisdom, strength, compassion, and spiritual depth. In my experience, the North American landscape is the cradle of these virtues, the repository of our epic national narratives, and the great stage upon

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which we are privileged, as I have been, to relive our national experiences. In the words of Wallace Stegner, the North American landscape is â&#x20AC;&#x153;the geography of hope.â&#x20AC;? But what began as a tribute to the North American land and people is in real danger of becoming an elegy. I feel an acute sense of urgency to not only record what is disappearing before our eyes, but also to honor it and to elevate it to its rightful stature, before it vanishes forever. We are destroying our cherished homeland and our natural and cultural heritage at a terrifying rate. We treat our natural landscapes and our human communities as disposable items, as valueless rubbish, as junk. As a photographer I am racing against time; I am a mere half step in front of the bulldozer. The America of wide-open spaces for people and wildlife, the America of close-knit towns and villages, the America of relationships based upon personal knowledge and mutual respect, is fast fading away. Rather than elegies, I hope these photographs inspire you just as those stories in Wyoming inspired me, and that they move you to reflect upon what we value as a nation, and how we can pass on those values unimpaired to successive generations. The North American landscape enriches us spiritually, culturally, physically, and aesthetically. It is an enduring resource that gives meaning and definition to our lives, nurtures our character, and sustains our beliefs. May it always be a place of magic and mystery, of sweat and toil.

Th e A rt o f t h e Wi l d Stephen Gorman

About Steve

or days, weeks and sometimes even months at a time, Steve sets off into the North American outback in search of striking images of the natural world and the men and women who live and work upon the land. His goal is to share his photographs and the stories behind each image with people in their homes, workplaces, public spaces, and wherever else they wish to be reminded of their personal connection to the land. To portray the spirit of these special people and places, Steve uses his sharply honed photography and wilderness travel skills, often journeying far beyond the end of the road, deep into remote regions with his cameras, returning from each expedition with images that can only be created in our last truly wild and historic landscapes. His powerful connection to his subject matter results in the most evocative images. According to The Washington Times “the result is always the same: a masterful, some might even say seductive, introduction to his chosen destination.” Bestselling novelist and nature writer Rick Bass says “Steve Gorman’s photographs come as close as is possible, other than actually being in the woods, to giving us glimpses, tastes, odors, sounds, and touches of the spirit and being of these places.” Audubon Magazine editor-in-chief Lisa Gosselin agrees, saying, “Stephen Gorman is an explorer who delves into the natural and social histories of the lands he visits, uncovering the soul of wilderness that drew our first pioneers and reinforcing the ethic of conservation that has kept America wild.”

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Steve’s large-format, color photo-essay books include The American Wilderness: Journeys into Distant and Historic Landscapes; Thoreau’s New England; Wild New England; and Northeastern Wilds: Journeys of Discovery in the Northern Forest and Arctic Visions: Encounters at the Top of the World. Throughout his career Steve has also worked on assignment for leading periodicals such as National Geographic publications, Discovery Channel publications, Men’s Journal, Sports Illustrated, Sierra, Audubon, and Outside, among many others. For the last several years he has been Artist-In-Residence for Cruise North Expeditions, an Inuit-owned and operated educational and adventure travel company based in the Canadian Arctic that is dedicated to cultural and environmental preservation.

Th e A rt o f t h e Wi l d Stephen Gorman