Range Docs

Here's another in the cowboy series I seem to have gotten into lately. This is what I used to do before turning to a fulltime art career due to a back injury which ended my cowboy days.

This freshly painted 24x28 oil depicts what everyday cowboys do, in this case at the foot of the ruby Mountains in Northern Nevada.. With a roped yearling stretched out, one of the cowboys, the "ground man", takes care of whatever deed needed to be done to the critter. The mounted cowboy has the responsibility of keeping the rope to the rear legs tight. Looking closely, you can see the horse has his head tucked a bit as he is reined back a step to help keep the tension on the rope.

The cowboy on the ground has a lot to keep track of. He's got a lot of rope strung about him as you can see in this detail. Originally he would have roped the steer (or heifer) by the head while his team mate roped the heels (hence the sport of "team roping" in toady's rodeo). Once the critter is down, the ground man will step off of his horse and with his own weight and a strategically placed knee, hold the calf in position while he "doctors" on him or her. Prior to releasing the calf, the rope is removed from the head and placed around the front legs so that once the cowboy is mounted, the two riders can give the steer some slack. When the calf struggles and springs to his feet, the loops on the two ropes will open allowing the calf to step out of the rope and trot off.

The cowboy on the ground has his rope dallied around the horn on his saddle and with the remaining coils of rope in hand, he has the ability to keep tension on the rope as he dismounts. Additionally he has a "get down rope" tucked under his belt with the other end around the neck of his horse. If things should go amiss, as they sometimes do, he still has a "life line" to his horse since the reins are draped around the horses neck and generally out of reach.

As you can see and imagine, both cowboys and their horses need to be highly trained and skilled in their ability get their work done as gently and safely as possible.

Absolutely Ridiculous

I know there is a lot we could chat about that would fall under this topic but time and space won’t allow it…fortunately. Almost each and every day we encounter something to which a natural response might be, “What? That’s ridiculous!” The other title I considered for this week’s column was “Stupid, stupid, stupid”, which would’ve been just as appropriate.


Being an artist and an entrepreneur is somewhat of a difficulty in itself. In a pure sense, an artist will create art for the sake of art. When an artist chooses to make money from whatever talents he or she possesses then the picture (pun intended) changes, sometimes drastically. With a new season (summer) approaching us here on Main Street and the anticipated arrival of visitors (tourists) to our fair community I’ve been looking around the studio/gallery and trying to anticipate what it is that they, or you good folks for that matter, might be interested in buying.

If you’ve been in the gallery you know that I like to paint a lot of different subjects. Many are subjects that appeal to me and some are strictly “market driven” so to speak. It’s that “market driven” subject matter that brought me to a new series of paintings I’m doing. I make a number of note cards and prints of the paintings I do, and I was thinking of doing something new that might have a broad appeal. It’s been in the back of my mind for some time now and like many ideas I have, it got pushed to the back of my mind as I tackle life’s every day occurrences. Yesterday I decided that now is the time.

I’m starting a series of Colorado wildflower paintings. So far so good but the idea has proven to be more of a challenge that I thought it would be. My chosen medium for these delicate delights is watercolor. I’ve got all of the reference material I need so that’s not an issue.

The problem that I’m having is that I can’t seem to get the results I want and here is the point of this column. I tried five paintings and none of them worked. Frustrated, I lined the paintings up and stood back to have a look. They all looked the same. All five had the same problems. Then it dawned on me. I had repeatedly been making the same errors. I had continued to do the same thing over and over, expecting a different result. How stupid is that? It is absolutely ridiculous to continue doing the same thing over and over and expect the effect to turn out different. That little insight can apply to many things. Lesson learned…finally.

What Now Boss?

This is a 24 x 48 oil painting I just finished. It depicts a cowboy and his dog making their rounds under the big Montana sky. The dog was trotting ahead of the cowboy on the trail they were following and came across the cow and her calf coming up the hill. The cow has her eye on the dog trying to determine if he is a threat or not, while the calf eyes the cowboy. The dog looks back at the cowboy hoping to get some instruction as to what he should do about this unexpected encounter.

This is a detail of the cow, calf and dog.
The painting is for sale at my studio for $2495 unframed.

Yard Art

We took a little trip down to Santa Fe last weekend. I’ve been wanting to get down there again for a couple of reasons. It’s important to me to stay abreast of what the art market, and the related framing market, are doing in terms of not only what is being offered but what it is that people are buying.

I pick Santa Fe to be my source for inspiration and fact finding because Santa Fe is considered to be a significant art market. 2007 Census Bureau data places Santa Fe fourth in the market for sales, behind first ranked New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA), followed by the second ranked Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana, MSA, and the third ranked San Francisco-Oakland, Fremont, MSA. It is interesting to note that Santa Fe is the only individual city ranked, where the others are all metropolitan areas. Another reason Santa Fe is attractive to me is because it is close and I like it there.

So, with justification established, off we went. We had another couple with us who wanted to look for some “yard art” while we were down there. I figured “art is art” so let’s see what we can find for them. Driving around we saw all kinds of stuff that I suppose could qualify as yard art. Everything from junk cars to old refrigerators including the requisite worn out couch on the front porch. Lots of that. We had something a little more tasteful in mind however so we kept going.

There’s a great little place on Cerrillos Boulevard on the left, headed south, just past Tortilla Flats, which by the way is a great place for breakfast, that had some really interesting metal fabricated… sculptures…I guess you could call them. I saw a really cool eight foot tall scarecrow looking thing behind the building. It had what looked like a deer head welded out of metal with a small set of real antlers on it. Metal fabric of some kind hung from outstretched horizontal arms. Kind of evil looking, like something a shaman would have. I figured my wife wouldn’t allow it in the yard as her cats would never come home again. We settled for a couple of rusty old Spanish cross designs instead and the other folks found what they wanted too.

Last fall when we were in Santa Fe, we came across some really cool, and really expensive, metal whirly-gig kind of things that rotated in the breeze creating quite the visual experience. There is a lot of talent down there and something for every budget.

Of course it is hard to beat nature for yard art. this is a great shot my wife Kathy took.
As always, a great time, great art and good food too was had by all. Stop by if you get a chance.