My wife and I left New York City last year and moved to the country, where all we have to do is walk out the door to see deer, turkey, coyotes, and red fox. My move to the country was not just to hunt; I had already been hunting diligently for two years while living on Avenue C in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. And people in both places have trouble with my method. In the city, many question the validity of an approach to the art-making process that mandates the taking of a life. In the country they don't understand why I'm not doing it for food or trophy.

But once I got here I found that I cared less and less about any kind of reason for the hunt and simply enjoyed it. During turkey and deer season, which runs from mid-October to mid-December, I hunt as much as I can afford to. I take every opportunity to make myself invisible within 10 yards of a gobbling turkey in full strut or a ten-point buck tearing up the ground.

This last season yielded only two hen turkeys and no deer, meager supply for those long winter nights. That leaves coyote, who are much more persistent at hunting than I'll ever be, and to date I've seen only their tracks.

Lately, I'm even starting to break this connection between my art and my shooting. I guess I needed an excuse to start hunting again, and it was my artwork. I don't need an excuse anymore.

Spring for me is the pinnacle of the hunting experience, and after a few seasons it has become my favorite. I heard about this guy who traps, and I've been buying skins from him for my artwork, leaving me free to wander in the woods and hunt---purely for the pleasure of it.