The idea for this painting came to me in a very different way. A lady at one of my art shows was interested in my paintings, especially the wolves. I noticed she was wearing a very unusual and beautiful crystal. I asked her where she got it. It turned out that she sold them for the lady who made them.

After looking throught a hundred different crystals, I picked the one I wanted. The woman told me the crystal I had picked was designed to increase my creativity. "I can never get enough of that" I said, so I traded a wolf print for the crystal. The woman told me I should put the crystal under my pillow at night.

That night, I dreamed it was the middle of winter, a full moon was out. The wind was blowing the snow off the trees, the dream was so real that I could feel the snow on my face. I was standing on top of a hill, looking down on a beautiful moon lit valley, with the mountains on the other side making a mysterious and mystical backdrop. About fifteen feet in front of me was a beutiful black wolf. I could see his breath and feel the sadness in his golden eyes. I looked to see where he was looking and saw the wind was blowing the clouds across the valley. Suddenly, I saw what was holding his gaze. There in the mist were the spirits of the pack of wolves that he had ran with.

This scene changed dramatically and the next thing I knew I was standing in a Museum of Art. In front of me was a gold rope and on the wall behind it was a beautiful oil painting of the black wolf in the setting I had just seen. I leaned over the rope and read the title of the painting, "Last of the Pack." I woke up thinking that I had really been to an Art Museum. It took me a little while to come back to reality, everything had felt and seemed so real!

I was so affected by this dream, I couldn't get it out of my head. I was so anxious to paint the painting from my dream, because it had such a powerful message. I knew this idea was special and was meant to be painted, to help open people minds and hearts.

This dream inspired my best selling series, "Nature Speaks". There are five parts to this series including, "Who's Moving In?", "On The Borderline", "Return of the Pack", and "Wild and Free". It set a new direction in my work. I feel this was truly an inspired painting. "Last of the Pack" was painted in 1987.

Hopefully man does wake up and think about the future for as Joseph Chasing Horse said "We haven't just inherited the earth from our ancestors, but we are borrowing it from our unborn children."

NATURE SPEAKS