Idaho Magazine-February Issue 26’

There is a lawlessness in my practices and I truly believe it stems from the rugged sage brush, the roaring rivers and the quiet forests that make up Idaho as we know it. I have not always been a fisherman, but I have always been wild, taking inspiration from the quiet freedoms that allow me to move between my disciplines. Among my work, you will notice my pull towards rivers. Drawing from their power, forgiveness and rhythms, I document it in every practice I busy myself with. I’m hesitant to call myself a flyfisherman- I’ve lost more flies than I can count and caught less fish than I will ever admit to. But something about being immersed in their environment and the pull on a line can be without question intoxicating.

I will never forget my first time catching a fish on a fly line. It was in October on the South Fork of the Boise and the air could’ve cut you in two. The sky was gray and the water was relentlessly cold, biting through layers while I grit my teeth and ventured out deeper. While I threw cast after cast with no luck I began to feel myself becoming less and less patient with the sport. Wondering, ‘What are we even doing out here?’. And then it happened. A thin line of red appeared in the river and I thought, ‘Am I going crazy? Does anyone else notice this? I must be losing it!’. I stared for a long while, watching the vibrant color flicker through each ripple. The light messing with my eyes when all of a sudden I realised... I was looking at a school of wild Salmon.

I quickly gathered myself. Getting re-situated, I began casting once more. ‘How amazing would it be to say that my first fish that I ever caught was a Salmon’, I thought to myself. Then to my surprise, a tug on my line. I immediately pulled up and I could feel the rush of adrenaline hitting me as the fish on my line began to challenge me. It was just the two of us, battling the current waiting to see who would come out as victor. When its head had reached the surface and I scooped it up in my net I was beyond excited and also a bit confused. I had in fact not caught a Salmon, but instead a Mountain Whitefish.

It wasn’t the prize I had imagined, but as I looked down at the fish, its scales flashing like riverlight, its body trembling between my palms, I couldn’t help but laugh. The river had given me exactly what I needed: a lesson in grace, in letting go of expectation, in finding joy in the unplanned. I remember lowering it back into the water, watching as it steadied itself in the current, then disappeared. The sky was still gray, the air still bit at my face, but something in me had shifted; some small, steady understanding that creation, like fishing, is mostly about showing up. About surrendering to the current, casting again and again, and trusting that the river will reveal what you’re meant to find.

That day, I learned that my art isn’t about the catch at all. It’s about the practice of being present, the way the land rearranges you, the way the light insists on being seen, the way patience becomes devotion. Whether I’m painting, designing, or standing behind the lens, I’m always chasing that same quiet pull: the mystery that lives between effort and grace. And maybe that’s what Idaho has taught me best, that to live and make art here is to be in constant conversation with the wild.