The word extraterrestrial comes to mind, though not in the flyingsaucer sense, but instead only that there was no soul better-suited for living on this Earth, and no soul less capable of surviving, remaining tethered and attached to, the buffetings and general turbulence of the times. Russell Chatham’s art was his life — there are still a few like this out there — but the much greater trick, his life was also his art. I’m thinking of an epigram by his friend Jim Harrison: “We loved the Earth but could not stay.” And this from Wallace Stevens: “The greatest poverty is not to live in a physical world.”
Though I published a book with Russell’s Clark City Press, I rarely saw him when he lived in Montana, where, distracted, he often…
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Anglers Journal (Digital) - 1 Issue, Summer 2022