Little Things in a Big Country: An Artist and Her Dog on the Rocky Mountain Front

"Little Things in a Big Country" is an artistic journal chronicling one year in the artist's life in the eastern part of Montana, known as the Front. The words and watercolors in this book work together beautifully to convey Ms. Hinchman's careful observations of the world of The Front. Her sketches include things as common as seed pods, animal tracks, and ice formations. What a treasure this book is! Reading it gave me a new appreciation for the power of keen observation of the world around me. This was the first artistic journal I've come across, and as a new (to me, at least) genre of book, the form impressed me. This is such a calming and inspiring book, one that I will enjoy reading again and again.

Hannah Hinchman is a Great Artist! I have all of her books and this one is full of beautiful watercolors and designed pages. All that you treasured in her other books only more of it! I have been to Montana once when I was 17, she describes it all so prefectly. A true inspiration to any art journaler. THANK YOU HANNAH!

As always, I am amazed and stunned at the work produced by this marvelous, funny, talented, brilliant and quirky woman. Her powers of observation and expression are unsurpassed--and infinitely inviting. Her art is rich, detailed, and filled at once with both scientific detail and emotion to which we cannot help but respond. Though my own home area is very far from Hannah's Wyoming Front, I KNOW what it is like to walk there, I KNOW what she means when she writes that she prefers the company of her dog, Sisu, to distracting conversation. I am there, silent, listening, watching, and sketching...thank you, Hannah. --Cathy Johnson, author of The Sierra Club Guide to Sketching in Nature and The Sierra Club Guide to Painting in Nature

According to a recent story in the New York Times Book Review there were 175,000 new books published in the U.S. in 2003. That was a 19% increase from the previous year and there is a good chance it will increase again this year. Unfortunately, such a deluge of new titles necessarily means that a number of worthy books will never be brought to the reader's attention. This may be such a book and it will be a shame if readers are not made aware of what Publishers Weekly calls "...a love letter to nature." To be sure it is that but it is so much more. It is a rare jewell worthy of the reader's attention. Hinchman is a published author, artist, illustrator, graphic designer and keen observer of both the landscape and people she encounters in a manner that not only enables the reader to see and feel her visions but to subtly allow the reader to begin to see and feel their own surroundings in a different way. Hinchman lives in Augusta, Montana, with her dog, Sisu, in some of the wildest country along the Rocky Mountain Front. The regional telephone book lists some 400 souls and main street has a general store, gas station, motel, two cafes, a bed & breakfast, hair salon, small library, coffee house and three bars. It is Lewis & Clark country and a place where solitude is valued and companionship treasured...sometimes. Single and approaching middle age, Hinchman moved to Augusta for the solitude and to concentrate on the landscape via her art. The result is this wonderful book that has hand-lettered text throughout and scores of watercolors, drawings and maps that are exquisite, detailed and thoughtful. She has captured the flora and fauna of the region in intricate detail and whether its hiking mountain terrain, exploring wetlands and marshes, or walking the vast grassy plains with the ever present Sisu, the reader is treated to a visual and written landscape that is unique and memorable. She also takes us to the Augusta rodeo, the Buckhorn Bar & Grill and Latigo & Lace, a coffee house, book store, art gallery, hand made clothing store, et al.and lets her language and imagery introduce the inhabitants of Augusta. Its almost like the reader is invited into her world and encouraged to sit a spell. The blending of her observations of the natural world with many of the colorful characters of the town, all in a highly readable manner, is both refreshing and unusual. Hinchman designed, lettered and illustrated the book personally, which is unusual for a major publisher to allow. However, when you see the wonderful watercolors, pen and ink, pastels or colored pencil illustrations and the hand-lettered text it will become apparent this is no ordinary book and the author is no ordinary writer. Highly recommended.

Hinchman's illuminated journal welcomes the reader with nature's vast palette in the Front region of Montana. An artist/writer at home in the natural environment where she lives, Hinchman has created a series of stunningly colorful and detailed illustrations, accentuated by hand-lettering throughout. With her Finnish Spitz, Sisu, at her side, Hannah roams the diverse flora and fauna of the Front, from the fields around her home to Tank Prairie, Redwing Slough, the Game Range and Double Creek. She stops in each place to draw and paint and annotate, her remarkable artwork is a delight, with its attention to minutiae, such as the difference between old snow and new snow, the leaf colorations that define their age, the hunting wasps and caterpillars, blooming wildflowers and artifacts found in the local meadow. Everything Hannah views with her artist's eye is rendered more accessible and alive. Her simple observations have a spiritual quality, touching on a grandeur that stuns the imagination. With Hannah, we observe the smallest of details, the changes in cottonwood bark, the flowers, spiders and insects of the grassland and even Augusta, Montana's infamous one-day rodeo, where everyone comes out to party. That Hannah Hinchman is an environmentalist and nature lover is clear in her exquisite artwork. In a town of locals who believe land was created solely for man's use, Hinchman is bound to have other ideas. But she has learned to coexist and make friends, the eccentric artist who minds her own business. She has obvious affection for the town folk and the friends she has made since moving to Augusta. The author's contribution to the genre of the illuminated journal is a small gem, a book to treasure and peruse, remembering the wonderful bounty of the wilderness. Little Things in a Big Country is reader-friendly, beautifully illustrated and stunningly visual. It serves as an excellent reminder to cherish those areas of the country that still retain their pristine beauty, before the onslaught of big-money backed resource development. In any case, this is the perfect gift, but make sure to save a copy for yourself. Luan Gaines/2004.