"JACK & WYLIE"

Happy Friday!

"JACK & WYLIE", 30" x 30", oil on canvas, framed, is now back in downtown Santa Fe, this time hanging out at The Mortgage Place, same building as Santa Cafe. Dash Hamblin will be glad to introduce this wise jack rabbit and the busily tracking coyote. Stop into The Mortgage Place and take a tour of all my original artwork now gracing their walls.

This particular oil painting was inspired when I was riding alone one afternoon a few years ago in the Catalina Wilderness in Tucson, Arizona. As I ambled along a curve in the trail, I spotted this magnificent jack rabbit, and stopped only 20 feet away to observe and photograph it. Motionless, it simply rolled the nearest eye back at me and, perceiving no threat, returned to staring fixedly across the landscape. I wondered what it was up to?

Just like a cartoon come to life, the coyote came into view then, it's nose to the ground, following a trail of scent. The jack and I sat quietly for several minutes, watching the furry hunter in the distance retrace its steps over and over. The rabbit glanced over at me a couple times, and I swear it was smiling in glee: the coyote had no idea that either it, or I and my drowsing, hipshot horse, were there. As long as we made no move, we were invisible.

My respect for the jack rabbit also had me laughing silently as I watched the confused coyote literally going in circles, its nose in the grasses, following trails that the long-eared one had deliberated laid down while eluding its tracker. I had the sudden sense that it was all part of a long-standing game between the unlikely pair.

Once back in my studio in Santa Fe, I sorted through the photos of the jack and the 'yote, before deciding to paint this natural drama. Those long rabbit ears, illuminated and glowing salmon-pink in the pale winter sunlight, provided a startling focus for the creatures, contrasting nicely with the duller greys and browns of the January desert.

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