Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/478498
W hen standing in a grand room—be it the sanctum of a private collector or art gallery—full of original Brent Cottons, the tantalizing question isn't deciding whether the Montana landscape painter is a master of portraying angling dreamscapes; it's facing the difficult choice of which window into fishing Eden do we wish to escape? Above the fireplace mantle, contained within frame number 1, might be Catching the Light, a vision of pure bliss that could convince even the most agnostic religious thinkers to believe there indeed is a heaven. Or hanging on the den wall you might spy Fly-Fisher's Paradise, in which the tiny silhouette of a long-caster is dwarfed by a luscious, aqua- marine pool that instantly locks you in revelry; or maybe it's the transcendent magnetism of Twilight Camp, an impressionistic piece that portrays three boat mates gathered 'round a riverside fire, sharing tales of big fish rises and sips of finely aged Scotch. Are you hooked yet? If there is a single description that can be attached to Cotton's visions, it's that they are intensely "soothing." Our eyes bask in fluid illumination. Light sets mood, design pulls us in deeper, as if we've entered a trance. Pouring forward are memories of other days, earlier ones, in our own lives when a sense of belonging etched Working almost exclusively with palette knives, Montana artist Brent Cotton creates enchanting landscapes that transport us deep into the sacred angling light. The Bitterroot River glides through a colorful autumn corridor in Brent Cotton's October in Montana.