2/9/2026 9:36:54 AM
David and I went out coyote hunting late one night last week. The moon was nowhere to be seen and the stars were tiny pinpricks, seeming higher and smaller than usual in an inky sky. We sat and called for a long time with no luck. Quietly, we picked up and moved farther down the ridge line, feeling more than seeing our way. We picked our way down a sharp slope and up again, making our way to a position that would put our backs to the gentle breeze that was coming in from the South. We set up again on the edge of a bluff, David placing the call below us along the creek and me scanning the area around us with a thermal scope. The thermal is amazing. I could see the familiar country all around us, the grass and rocks and dirt a bright white, the cedar trees black and the cattle red hot. They were laying together, a mile away, chewing their cuds contentedly and gazing curiously in the direction of the call. A rabbit darted across the clearing below us, but nothing else was moving. We sat and called for a long time and finally decided to pack it in.
After a brief scan of our surroundings with the flashlight, we set out in the general direction of the pickup, the flash of light disorienting and making the dark even darker when it clicked off. We walked slowly, picking our way through brush and tall, dry grass and over gritty gyp rocks. It was too dark to see my own feet, or what I where I was placing them but I walked on, following David, the stars offering no help from above.
As I walked, I thought about the faith it takes to just keep putting one foot in front of the other. Trusting that the ground will be there to meet my boots, trusting that the pickup will be at the end of the path, trusting my feet to find purchase on whatever they land on. Without trust, without faith, I would have to just stop. And while it’s an option, it’s also NOT an option, because there would be no one to walk for me, no one else could bring me up that ridge and deliver me to the truck but me. Faith is a choice, but it’s also sometimes the only choice. You have to just keep walking, keep trusting, and know that you will get there eventually.
My thoughts turned to my art career. The one foot after another I’d been placing carefully, but placing, nonetheless. The inability to see where I was stepping or where, exactly, I was going to end up, just knowing that I want to make my way there, one way or another, and knowing that no one can do it for me and stopping is simply not an option.
I thought about David, walking sometimes in front, sometimes beside me, both of us breathing hard in the chilly air, laboring our way up the slope. We have that same faith and trust in each other; that same faith and trust in our life together and the goals and future we are building together. We take a lot of calculated steps in business, but there’s also a lot of putting our feet down and carrying on when we can’t see the ground in front of us. I’m glad I don’t have to do it alone and I know he feels the same way.
The pickup appeared suddenly ahead, starlight glinting subtly off the chrome grill, it sat like a stoic sentinel on the crest of the hill. I breathed a sigh of relief and we trudged the last few steps a little faster, knowing where we were, our feet remembering the smooth nature of the ground where we'd parked. The noise of the engine and the tires in the grass were impossibly loud after our hours of quiet in the dark. I love that we go call together, even if we don't see a single coyote. Just sitting quietly, not talking, no screens, no telephones, just one another, experiencing an evening sitting and walking together, quietly trusting together. I hope we go again soon.
2/20/2024 8:59:51 PM
Rejections is part of it…
I heard a quote recently that really hit home for me.
…When you think you’ve hit your rock bottom and are as low as you can go, you have to decide…is it a burial? Or a planting?
Last week I received a letter in the mailbox from the Buffalo Bill Show in Montana. Oh, the butterflies! I’ve applied to this show a couple of times and have never made it in. I didn’t wait until I got home, I tore it open rather unceremoniously right there in the feed truck.
…….
Rejected.
…….
They say it very nicely, of course, we’re SO sorry to inform you….There were SO many applicants. The selection process was SO tough….
A year or two ago, this would have been SO disappointing to me. It would have probably ruined my day. Maybe my week. I would have thrown that letter in the trash and then went and sat at my drawing table and asked myself, why am I even bothering?
Instead, I took the letter home, propped it up on my studio table where I will see it daily for a while and I am USING it to fuel my fire. I WILL be at the Buffalo Bill Show one of these days. I will.
I’m reminded of my especially sweet win with my drawing titled “Focus” at last year’s Meeker Classic Sheepdog Trials. You see, Meeker is my hometown. I watched the Trials (And more closely watched the art show) every year for as long as I can remember. The winner of the show was awarded a big cash prize and the use of their artwork on the advertising posters for the Meeker Classic the next year. I was a young artist. I was dabbling in watercolor and my trusty pencils and I worked SO hard at it. I drew and painted dogs for MONTHS. I had to win this. I just had to. I wanted it SO bad. I needed the money. I needed the bragging rights, I needed it to validate all this art I was feverishly working at towards….well, I didn’t exactly know what I was working towards, I was just working.
I went to the opening receptions, waited breathlessly for the winners to be announced, hoping against hope… and I never did win it. Not in the fifteen-plus years that I was there.
We moved away from Meeker in 2008 and my art was put on the back burner for a long, long time. When I picked up my pencils again, this time quite seriously, I looked up the show prospectus for the Meeker Classic online. And I set a goal. I was going to win it. It might take me a few years, but I wanted to prove to myself that I really do have what it takes. I entered it last year, in 2023, for the first time in 17 years. And now my drawing is the featured artwork for the 2024 poster and will be used in all of their advertising. I am STILL pinching myself.
I will have art hanging at The Buffalo Bill Show one of these days. The secret to succeeding is simply, DO NOT QUIT. So if you, my friends, have received a rejection letter lately, didn’t get that promotion, were not asked to participate in WHATEVER it is that you feel passionately about….don’t give up. You put in the time, you put in the sweat and you give it your heart and you WILL succeed. At the risk of sounding totally corny, DON’T STOP BELIEVING.
Yesterday I opened a letter in my inbox from the Cowgirl Gathering in Fort Worth and was pleased to learn that two of my drawings were accepted into their prestigious show in May. I won the People’s Choice there last year and the Purchaser’s award from the American Paint Horse Association. Fort Worth was a dream come true, and I’m so excited to be invited back again. Here’s the thing though, I entered three pieces. Just two were juried in. And the one that I really probably love the most, (of my son, Russell) didn’t make it into the show. I remind myself that the jury process is tough. It is one person’s opinion in a given moment. And everyone is an individual. Who knows why they liked the other two and not this one? Instead of being upset about it, I’ll enter it in some other shows that are coming up. Maybe it’ll make it in. …maybe it won’t. Either way, I love the piece and am proud of it.
Tell me your rejection stories and wins, your hopes and dreams…What goals are you setting for yourself this year? I’d love to hear all about what drives you personally.
