Greetings and Happy New Year!

Many people expressed interest in hearing about our backcountry adventure that resulted in the “2 Sides to Every Story” exhibit at the Hockaday Museum of Art in the fall of 2018. Despite having close to 175 people attend our opening reception and presentation, there are many who have not heard the backstory of our time out in the Bob Marshall Wilderness.

Gini Ogle and Francesca Droll (L to R) giving our presentation to the audience during the Opening Reception to our exhibit “2 Sides to Every Story.”

With that in mind, I’ll be posting the narrative from my journal along with photos and artwork. There will be quite a few weekly installments to keep the reading of the story manageable. I’ll send email notifications when I’ve posted each installment. My first installment will be this Friday, January 18th, and each subsequent installment will be every Friday.

Our adventure began when Gini Ogle and I sent in our applications for the Artist-Wilderness-Connection program. We were fortunate to have been chosen as participants for the summer of 2017. The program is sponsored by the Hockaday Museum of Art, The Bob Marshall Wilderness Foundation, Flathead National Forest and Swan River Connections. In addition to spending time in a forest service cabin on the middle fork of the Flathead River, we painted a body of work for exhibition and gave tours to school children and other interested parties.

My husband, John R. Webster, created a 6-minute video documenting our adventure. To see the video click on the link and scroll down the page: https://francescadroll.com/2-sides/

I hope you enjoy the journey and I appreciate your interest. Happy trails to you!

From Francesca’s journal—a watercolor of the cabin we stayed in for 11 days.

Francesca standing in the exhibit room.

Francesca surrounded by some of her paintings and the video of the experience.