By Cindy Mullet
Ranger-Review Staff Writer
When Earl Jensen leaves his home, he always has a digital camera in one pocket and a small notebook in another.
Jensen, a photographer, painter, potter and poet, said he always wants to be ready to capture an image that strikes his fancy or a poem that pops into his head.
As a boy growing up on a ranch north of Glendive, Jensen wasn’t able to operate machinery or help with some of the ranch work because of seizures he had due to epilepsy. Since his activities were limited, he developed his creative side, he said.
In college, he started out majoring in music but while there fell in love with ceramics and switched his major from music to art. He no longer has a place for his kiln and potter’s wheel so isn’t able to work with clay, but finds many other expressions for his creativity, he said.
Photography, poetry and painting are still available to him. He’s not much on painting realistic scenes or figures but instead enjoys creating designs and experimenting with color combinations.
“I just love to draw designs,” he said, noting that he usually works on a painting for 12-16 hours, three or four hours a day. Using painter’s tape to be sure his lines are straight keeps his designs sharp, he added.
Being able to see beauty in an object or a scene and then capture it demands a special eye.
“Most of the things I catch on camera are natural,” he said. “God is the greatest artist of all. Our biggest challenge is learning how to see it.”
Jensen estimates he has also written around 600 poems. The poems are usually very precise and exact, written the way they come to him so he rarely goes back to rewrite them, he said.
One time his brother watched him write a poem and wanted to know how he did it. When Jensen explained that they just came, his brother commented, “That’s not fair,” and Jensen responded, “Life’s not fair.”
Living with epilepsy may not have been fair to Jensen either, but over the years he has learned to cope and in 1985 started receiving acupuncture treatments for it. The treatments have been very effective. He has been free from attacks since 2003 and hasn’t needed a treatment for two years, he said.
Although his main interest now is art, he hasn’t lost his enjoyment of music. He took accordion lessons for 10 years and still enjoys playing as a member of the Kitchen Band which plays at various locations around town four times a month, he said.
In January, Jensen will be The Gallery’s featured artist of the month, so he is busy choosing and enlarging photographs from the thousands he has taken and selecting the paintings he will display.
Reach Cindy Mullet at
crmullet@midrivers.com