WHISKEY GULCH
Whiskey Gulch is located twenty-five miles east of Lewistown, Montana. There are a few neighboring ranches and the ghost town of Gilt Edge on the other side of the mountain. Around the bend, up a gravel road, through three gated fields, following the creekbed, you will find a dog-leg wooded meadow, surrounded by BLM land, far removed from telephone, electricity and running water. That’s Whiskey Gulch.
In 1973 my friend Bonnie invited me to build a cabin on her property there. I started building in June with help from new and old friends. We felled trees, peeled logs, carried heavy creekbed rocks for the foundation. I scrounged doors and windows from the Lewistown dump and had the place closed in by December.
Montana Winters can be brutal – 30 below and blowing snow. They can also be sunny and silent.- electric blue shadows in the snow. I left in March of 74, returning to California, where I began my career as a public artist. I have returned to Whiskey Gulch periodically, over the years. I spent another couple of winters and several summers chopping wood, carrying water, painting and photographing. Nothing lasts forever. Eventually the snow took the roof and the cabin is now making its slow descent back to the ground. The porcupines and the pack rats have it all.