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D
o a Google image search for the
Scotchman Peaks and a surprising
majority of the search results will be
paintings.
Credit that to the Friends of the Scotchman
Peaks Wilderness (FSPW), which for the last six
years has taken artists on a rugged backpacking
trip deep in the heart of the 88,000-acre Scotch-
man Peaks Wilderness Study Area in the western
Cabinet Mountains of Idaho and Montana—some
of the wildest country in Montana.
Painters Jared Shear and Aaron Johnson sketched
out the idea at a plein air paintout organized by
the FSPW, Kally Thurman at Outskirts Gallery in
Hope, Idaho, and Jim Quinn at Timber Stand Gal-
lery in Sandpoint.
"En plein air" is a French expression that means
"in the open air" and in particular describes the act
of painting or drawing outdoors. The paintout, like
most acts of plein air, was casual, from the side of
the road. Shear and Johnson's idea: to take artists
into the untracked interior of the Scotchmans to
paint, pencil sketch, sculpt, and photograph.
Says Shear, "At that time the event just looked
at views of the Scotchman Peaks from outside the
wilderness area, so Aaron johnson and a couple art-
ists and I suggested 'Hey, let's actually get into the
wilderness and paint from the inside.'"
Getting inside the Scotchmans, however, is no
easy task.
No roads enter the Scotchman Peaks, and few
trails penetrate the periphery. Those that do either
attack the peaks mercilessly or snake up the cedar-
choked creek bottoms.
Sandy Compton, Program Coordinator at FSPW
and descendant of a string of Comptons who lived
in the shadow of Star Peak on the southern edge
of the Scotchmans, planned an ambitious bush-
whacking itinerary: "Sandy points and says, 'we're
going to go here, and you figure out how to get
there,'" laughs Johnson. The idea earned the name
"Extreme Plein Air."
by
aaroN
tHEISEN
En Plein Air:
Art on the Wild Side
