My friend in Montana just purchased these two original paintings for his home on Flathead Lake. These are paintings of Florida panthers, a U.S. subspecies of mountain lion, listed as critically endangered on the endangered species list. There are less than 150 Florida panthers left in the wild. I’ve named them EFEKI (Seminole for Heart) and ILA (Seminole for Arrow).

According to the The National Wildlife Federation, due to conservation efforts, mountain lion populations in the western United States are stable, although far lower than they were historically. While there are still several thousand mountain lions in the wild, their population has significantly decreased from their historical population due to unsustainable hunting, habitat destruction, and conflicts with livestock.

Mountain lions are an “umbrella species” for conservation because their conservation depends on the preservation of large amounts of habitat. A mountain lion usually requires about 13 times as much area as a black bear or 40 times as much area as a bobcat to thrive. By preserving enough wilderness to support a stable mountain lion population, countless other species of plants and animals that share mountain lion habitat benefit.

The painting “Tomato Girls” is one of those works that evolved over time. It started out as a photograph I took while living in Conifer, in the foothills of the Rockies. I had a blue folder sitting on the couch in my study room. I thought the colors looked interesting. I had three nice round tomatoes and a glass champagne bucket. I put the three tomatoes in the champagne bucket and positioned it next to the blue folder. “This could make a nice minimalist still life,” I thought. And then the Tomato Girls showed up.

Just like Viggo said…”You don’t have to make something that people call art. there is an art to getting through the day.”