Goose Island

Goose Island by Bonnie Zahn Griffith

Pastel on Paper

9" x 12"

14" x 17" (framed, under glass)

From a show at the Hockaday Museum titled "For the Love of Glacier: Paintings and Photography by Bonnie Griffith and L.R. Newman." Bonnie posthumously collaborated with her distant relative, the late photographer L.R. Newman. Griffith grew up admiring the photos of L.R. Newman’s trips to Montana and Glacier, which reminded her of her own family ranch in Central Montana and her own connection to Glacier. In 2021, she decided to create a new body of work in response to specific photos of special locations.

Saint Mary Lake is the second-largest lake in Glacier National Park, Montana. Located on the east side of the park, Going-to-the-Sun Road parallels the lake along its north shore. Here, the great plains end and the Rocky Mountains begin in an abrupt 5,000-foot elevation change, with Little Chief Mountain posing a formidable southern flank above the west end of the lake. Wild Goose Island rises a mere 14 feet above the lake. The island is dwarfed by the lake and surrounding mountains, yet it is of one of the most frequently photographed locations along the Going-to-the-Sun Road.