Every Collection Has a Beginning…
After decades of creating award-winning flutes, ceremonial pieces, fine art photography, and other handcrafted works, I reached a point where a vision I had carried for many years finally demanded my full attention.
For more than a decade, an idea quietly followed me through the mountains and river valleys of Wyoming.. It wasn’t a finished sculpture or even a sketch. It was simply the thought that someday I wanted to tell the story of the North American grizzly—not in the pages of a book, but in bronze. At first, I imagined a single sculpture. It wouldn’t remain that way.
Every sculpture begins with a story.
Why Ten Bears?
People have asked me why I chose ten bears. The honest answer is that I don’t know if I ever consciously chose the number at all. From the very first day this idea entered my mind, it was simply The Ten Bears Collection. Not nine. Not twelve. Ten. Only later did I begin to understand why.
Looking back, I think I understood—perhaps only subconsciously—that one sculpture could never tell the entire story.
The life of a grizzly cannot be captured in a single moment. It is a lifetime of seasons, survival, strength, instinct, and quiet beauty.
One bear catches a trout.
Another teaches her cubs.
One survives a harsh spring.
Another quietly watches a mountain valley at first light.
Each sculpture becomes another chapter in the same story.
It’s a collection rooted in one of the last great wild ecosystems in North America. Some ideas arrive all at once. Others quietly wait for years until the artist is finally ready to pursue them. The journey that began quietly more than a decade ago now begins in clay. The Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem is my stage.
Welcome to The Ten Bears Collection.
Every story has a beginning
This one begins with a grizzly bear and a trout.
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