In the early 1890s when he was struggling to find a career as an artist, Russell lived with Mr. and Mrs. Ben R. Roberts in Cascade, a small town southeast of Great Falls. There he painted in a small studio set up in a building near the ranch house. One early spring, after Russell had taken his things and decamped from the Roberts’ homestead in Cascade, Ben Roberts was cleaning the small cabin that Russell used as his winter living quarters and discovered this drawing laying on the floor. In the drawing, Russell gives us an accurate picture of his seasonal life as an artist in the years leading up to his marriage. At that time he led a somewhat nomadic existence, moving from one place to another, and a studio could be a makeshift space in the corner of a barn, as he shows here.