This is one of my favorite images because of the combination of the location and the subject. I had the chance to attend two different ceremonies this holy man performed. He's a Crow Indian and a member of the Whistling Water Clan. The Crow are the only plains tribe with a clan system. I think there are about ten different clans in the tribe and the Whistling Water Clan is the largest. That makes him a very important person in Crow society and an impressive subject to paint.

The Holy City is a lava formation about eight miles from my house. It is in the Bighorn National Forest, which leads into Yellowstone National Park. The same volcanic activity that created Yellowstone’s landscape formed these. They are very dramatic. Putting the two together made a great deal of sense to me because they are both such moving subjects. At first take, one would think that they represent two very different kinds of inspiration, but the more you think about it, the more you realize they actually belong together. - JB