Nik Carpenter, Montana artist and inventor of the Visions In Depth concept

I remember standing on the north rim of the Big Coulee looking across the Rothiemay Flats at the Snowy Mountains thirty miles away and thinking, “Look at that space under my big Montana sky!” I knew the space was filled with horses, cows, ranchers, antelope, deer, bobcats, jackrabbits, cottontails, rattlesnakes, sagebrush and cactus. Wedged amongst those critters were eagles, sage hens, pheasants and some of the best trout fishing streams in the world.

Even as a boy growing up on the ranch I wanted to draw and paint it all.

I like to draw and enjoy using a patch of chamois to smear charcoal over a sheet of thick vellum paper, and then using an eraser to pull up the light shapes and a charcoal stick to establish the darker passages. The values of light and dark, in concert with the smeared charcoal, allow an image to appear magically.

Drawing in color I thickly apply conté crayons over the surface of quality rag content paper giving the feeling of painting; sharpening the tip of the conté to a fine point helps me create delicate lines. Other drawings in this site are made with pen and ink which is less forgiving than charcoal or conté.

Over the decades I made images of subjects I found under my big sky and looked for ways to give a certain depth to each. I shaped canvas into dimensional objects; formed panels and shaped them, too, and used them to create landscapes with implied greater spatial depth.

Eventually, I found a new way to look at artwork and in the mid nineties I invented a prototype and went on to develop my “Visions In Depth” series. These images created on multiple layers of anti-reflective glass entice the viewer to look deeper into a three dimensional space for a closer, more intimate experience. I am always thrilled to see a viewer examine a Vision In Depth creation, and as they look they begin to sway back and forth in a graceful manner to see into and behind the layers as they recede in space.
I call this interactive motion the ‘Nik Carpenter Waltz’.