Michael Haykin’s intimate journey with Montana’s landscape began more than fifteen years ago at the Montana Artists Refuge. What he found upon arrival that May, 1995, was incredibly unsettling. Living in Florida, Michael had imagined a residency in Montana replete with log cabin, bubbling creek and pristine wood. Neither his great tan nor his shorts prepared him for the May blizzard, wood stove and stack of firewood waiting to be split.
He called his brother Stephen that first night. “This seems more like a jail sentence than a residency!” To this his brother replied, “Don’t forget it takes fourty-eight hours to fall in love.”
Forty eight hours later, Michael found himself up Cataract Creek, hiking in the snow, acutely aware of the beautiful smells. Suddenly, the smells shifted and he came upon an elk herd. He had never seen anything like it. Sixteen years later, he is still in love.
Over the next three years, Michael returned to the Refuge. He carved out a habit of plein aire painting each and every day. “I began to develop a fluency. I knew that it was happening because if I painted a cow, a horse, a turn in a creek, an angle of light and it wasn’t right, Montanans let me know. When I realized that Montanans were responding so positively to my work, I felt that I had accomplished a fluency in a language that - before I arrived - I didn’t know a word of.”
Michael thinks of his paintings as images found in the field guide of a mad naturalist. “I am 50% scientist, 50% poet. It is natural science that fuels my art. Art in turn forces me to learn more about natural science. If authenticity is the ultimate goal, not only as a painter but as a person, I want to be sure that what I am saying is accurate.”
Michael found his authentic voice in the fields and gullies of Montana. “What happened to me in Montana is in part a direct result of my experience with the Montana Artists Refuge. I landed in a place where, for me, the ground was enormously fertile. For that, I am deeply grateful.”
To learn more about Michael Haykin and view his beautiful work visit www.haykin.com.
Nurturing Artists- Enriching Communities