The Bozeman courier. (Bozeman, Mont.) 1919-1954, 1925-12-11
(By MRS. Nj. E. PLAssMANN)

MOT FAR from the big hotel at
N at the entrance to Glacier
National Park, the road to Two
Medicine Chalet passes a group of
cottages set against a green back
ground of what Emerson denOmin-
ates Sacred pine trees. There is
nothing about any of these buildings
likely to attract the attention Of the
tourist who speeds by in an auto
mobile; but the pedestrian, or those
who have been directed there, will
notice that on the posts supporting
the Veranda of one cottage, are
carved insets representing the big
horn and the mountain goat. Here is
the studio of John Clarke, a native
Montana artist.
Until a comparatively recent date,
Montana, one of the youngest states,
was looked upon as a region where
Indians, cowboys, and dad men,
divided the hOnOrs, and the climate
well, the less said about the eli
mate the better. It has been conceded
there are hot afternoons here; but
these are chiefly noticeable in con-
trast with the prevailing Arctic tenn
~peratUre.s
With the concession of hot after
moons has come the further admis-
sion that Montana is forging to the
front along educational, literary, and
artistic lines. Our school standards
are admittedly among the highest,
and our press shows marked ability;
Wilbur Hall and Maury, both Mon
tanans, have won a place as fiction
writer's, and Gertrude Haste was
given the Nations" poetry prize,
while e. S. PaxsOn and Charles
Russell have gained international
regulations as artists, the last named
having received the accOlade of
royalty.
But those mentioned above do not
by any means exhaust the list of
writer's and artists who are revOlu-
tiOnizing the precOnceived notion of
Montana, and among them John
Clarke's name is writ in large letters.
Born in the northwest, where race
prejudice is not unknown, he is of
mixed blood, being three quarters
Indian, his great-grandfather having
been a war chief Of the Piegans, an
office acquired only through bravery.
A grandson of Malcolm Clarke, a
member of the American Fur Com
pany and a distinguished son of q
captain in the United States army
he is also allied to the Seymour
J., family of New York and England.
While very young, an attack Of
scarlet fever caused his loss of hear.
ing. Then followed years when he
was unable to communicate with
others as a one who is not deaf
At this period of his life, like Heller
Keller, and for the same reason, he
was subject to violent fits of temper
due to his inability to make others
, understand his wishes.
Hampered in this manner his
II youth was passed. Lacking cOmpan-
ionship, he spent his days in roaming
over the ~neigbboring mountains
i first, of the HighwoOds, where his
father, Horace Clarke owned a beaut-
fully located ranch, and later, along
the Two Medicine, and in what is
now Glacier National Park. During
these years his sole i~nstructress was
Nature, whom he grew to know in
timately, when the wild animals OF
mountain and plain, became more
familiar to him, than domestic ami
mails are to the average person; but
it was long before his skillful fingers
made them live again in wood, or on
! canvas.
z At an age when the average child
is in high school, John Clarke was
sent to the Institution for Deaf
Mutes, at DEVILS Lake, North DakO-
ia, for primary instruction, and re-
manned there until the number OF
applicants from that state forced him
to leave and go to Boulder. Here he
was destined to be crowded out by
those of entire white blood, and was
then sent to a Catholic school fOl
deaf mutes near Milwaukee.
It was at this institution he learn.
ed wood carving, and suddenly awOkC
to the realization that this was some
thing he liked to do. Not satisfied
with reproducing traceries of leaves
and flowers, his mind naturally re
verted to what he had seen in his
solitary rambles through the noun.
tains, and by the streams of his Mon
tana home, and he began to carve
life-like representations of the wilC
animals he knew so we'll. Mountain
sheep and goats grew out of a blOcl
of wood under his def touch. In hi
studio buffalo glare at you will
wicked Y e from beneath thei
shaggy brows, and bears-littl'
bears and big bears-are shown II
every imaginable attitude. You COM
to love John Clarke's bears as b.
must have done in order to recreatl
them. They are so c~OnVincingly real
as they climb trees, roll together Il
clumsy play, or sit with their cub
hugged to their breasts.
But wood carving does not exhaus
his artistic capabilities, for he ha
done some excellent work in blacl
and white and in painting. That
deaf-mute is an artist is by no mean
strange. NJ. R. Lindler, in the Stutt
CART "KOsmos', says Of the norma
child:
s'The zest for drawing slowly d
minishes or even leases about tn
twelfth or thirteenth year. That il
at the time when the faculty c
speech begins to be greatly deve
Oped. But among deaf-mutes, tn