Barns, Barns, Barns

Cowgirl Museum Heart of the West Exhibition

Don’t miss the 5th Annual Heart of the West Art Exhibition and Sale October 2nd to the 25th.

Look at all of the wonderful work online at:

http://www.cowgirl.net/hotw/2009/

You can see the artists works for sale when you click on their name through the web site,

http://www.cowgirl.net/hotw/2009/featuredartists.html

Olaf Wieghorst

Olaf Wieghorst (1899-1988) was a self-taught artist. He became a full-time painter in 1945, when he was 46 years old. In 1948 he swapped one of his paintings for a year’s supply of turkeys. In 1982 a private collector bought Wieghorst’s “Navajo Madonna” (oil on canvas) for $450,000. -- believed to be the highest price paid to that time for the work of a living western painter.

Olaf’s life and careers have been intimately linked to horses. Born in Viborg, Denmark on April 30, 1899, he apprenticed on a farm, then became an acrobat and stunt rider for a Danish circus. His artistic talent had been noticed as early as age 6 and he began painting more seriously in 1916. While working as a sailor in 1918, he jumped ship in New York City and enlisted for duty on the Mexican border, serving in the U.S. 5th Calvary at Fort Bliss, Texas. During his three years of military service as a horseshoer, he picked up rodeo skills and continued with his trick riding. Mustering out of the service in Arizona, he found work as a ranch hand on the Quarter Circle 2C Ranch. The ranch brand became Wieghorst’s insignia.


Returning to the East in 1924, he spent the next twenty years as a mounted policeman for the City of New York. He married Mabel Walters in Brooklyn, on October 25, 1924. After retirement in 1945, Olaf, Mabel and their son Roy moved to El Cajon where finally, he could focus on his art. He built a studio, filled it with western memorabilia and kept two saddle horses for riding and for use as models.

Wieghorst traveled the West extensively, gathering materials for his paintings. On frequent visits to Indian reservations, he became familiar with the most rominent western tribes. He was a stickler for authenticity in every detail of his work. While adhering to the Remington/Russell tradition, Olaf’s work was based on his own experiences and reflected his emotional ties with broad western landscapes.

Famous private collectors of Wieghorst’s art include U.S. Presidents Reagan, Ford, Nixon and Eisenhower; Senator Barry Goldwater, J. P. Morgan, Leonard Firestone, Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, Bing Crosby, John Wayne, Burt Reynolds and Clint Eastwood.

“When the time comes to put away my palette and unsaddle my pony,” he said, “I hope that my canvases will in some small measure add to the historical recording of an era; the cowboy, the cowpony, and the great American West.”

Sources:
http://www.wieghorstmuseum.org/index.htm
http://www.olafwieghorst.com/

The Hay Crew

Since it is haying season in various places and the dog days of summer I thought I would share this photo. It was found behind my grandmas piano. We aren't sure who is in it but it is one of my favorite photos. It reminds me how good we have it now days with our modern technology and equipment.

Double click it to see a nice big version and the hard working looks on their faces.

Hope everyone is having a good summer and not to hot!

Evelyn Cameron

A British lady, her naturalist husband, and her unwieldy 5x7 Graflex camera moved to Terry, Montana in the late 1800s. When they went broke raising polo ponies, ‘Lady’ Evelyn Cameron turned to photography for a living and traveled eastern Montana taking startlingly clear pictures of everything: cowboys, sheepherders, weddings, river crossings, freight wagons, people working, badlands, eagles, coyotes and wolves.

Evelyn enjoyed the outdoor lifestyle that Eastern Montana offered. She did most of the manual labor herself and attributed her superb health to “the open air life--riding on horseback, digging in the garden, etc. etc.” Their first business venture was to raise polo ponies to ship to England. This gamble proved to be a losing enterprise and the Cameron’s began taking in boarders to pay the bills. One boarder got Evelyn interested in photography, in which she excelled. She began creating an exceptional collection of photographs. She became known in the area as a photographer and people would seek her expertise at capturing them on film. She kept meticulous notes about life on the eastern Plains and this information provided valuable evidence of the life and times during the turn of the century. Evelyn’s photographs captured the spirit of the cowboys, sheep herders, homesteaders, river crossings, freight wagons, wildlife and natural beauty of the grasslands. Through her camera lens, Terry was recorded for posterity.

In the late 1970s, former Time Life books editor, Donna Lucey discovered thousands of Cameron’s photo-negatives stashed away in the basement of Cameron’s best friend’s home. Lucey quickly realized she had discovered a treasure trove of masterpieces chronicling the lives of Terry’s early settlers. After years of sorting the photographs and studying Cameron’s meticulously kept diaries, Lucey published 'Photographing Montana 1894-1928: The Life and Work of Evelyn Cameron', a photo-book that beautifully depicts Cameron’s photographic genius and her unique personality. Visitors can discover Terry’s history at the Cameron Gallery featuring large crisp copies of the photographs that made her famous. The collection is a stunning portrayal of the everyday lives of eastern Montana homesteaders.

The book really is a wonderful resource of and on photography of the west.


Sources:
http://www.evelyncameron.com/
http://www.evelyncameron.com/index.php?Action=ShowMedia&Target=PM-1
http://www.cowgirl.net/libraryandresearch_cameron.asp

Juried Art at the Frederic Remington Art Museum

Some very nice pieces:

http://www.fredericremington.org/images_start.php?gal=gallery/sub56/&pge=0

May Giveaway

Our first official giveaway:

4.5 x 5.5 print of Spring Storm by Mandy McArthur

Just leave a comment telling who your favorite Western Fine Artist(does not have to be etsy team member) is and you will be entered in to the drawing to win. Team members allowed to enter.

Contest open until the end of May.

Creative Inspiration

If you need a break from what you are doing check out the horse photography galleries by Wojciech Kwiatkowski:

http://www.kawalkada.zin.pl/


You won't be disappointed!

The Preakness

Pictured is Johnny Loftus riding Sir Barton at the 1919 Preakness race. He was the first jockey to win the Triple Crown.

The second leg of the triple crown, the Preakness will take place this Saturday.
It is a 1- 3/16 mile thoroughbred horse race for three-year-old horses, held on the third Saturday in May each year at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, Maryland. It is known as "The Run for the Black-Eyed Susans" because a blanket of Black-eyed Susans is traditionally placed around the winner's neck.

Governor Oden Bowie of Maryland, a horsemen and racing entrepreneur, was among the distinguished roster of guests at an elegant dinner party after the races at the Union Hall Hotel in Saratoga given by Milton H. Sanford, who had gained much of his wealth selling blankets during the Civil War. John Hunter of New York proposed that the feast be commemorated by a stake race to be run in the fall of 1870 for three-year old colts and fillies at two miles, to be known as the Dinner Party Stakes in honor of the evening. Bowie electrified the gathering by suggesting a purse of $15,000, a staggering sum in those days. Governor Bowie requested that the Dinner Party Stakes be run in Maryland, and pledged to build a new racetrack to host it. Hence, the idea for Pimlico Race Course was born, and in the fall of 1870, the inaugural Dinner Party Stakes was run on Pimlico's opening.

Won by Sanford's Preakness, one of only two male entrants in the seven horse field, the massive bay colt was a first time starter. His jockey, Billy Hayward, followed a unique tradition of the day after the race: a wire was stretched across the track from the judges' stand with a small silk bag filled with gold pieces. When the race was over, the winning jockey untied the string holding the bag and claimed the money. It is believed this custom brought about the modern day "wire" at the finish line, and the designation of "purse" money.

Bowie named the then mile and one-half race in honor of the colt Preakness. The New Jersey name was said to have come from the Native American name Pra-qua-les for "Quail Woods" for the area.

The Preakness almost always attracts the Kentucky Derby winner, some of the other horses that ran in the Derby, and often a few horses that did not start in the Derby. The Preakness is 1 3/16 miles, or 9 1/2 furlongs, compared to the Kentucky Derby, which is 1 1/4 miles. It is followed by the third leg, the Belmont Stakes, which is 1 1/2 miles.

Since 1931, the order of Triple Crown races has the Kentucky Derby first, followed by the Preakness Stakes and then the Belmont Stakes. Prior to 1931, eleven times the Preakness was run before the Derby. On May 12, 1917 and again on May 13, 1922, the Preakness and the Derby were run on the same day.

As soon as the Preakness winner has been declared official, a painter climbs a ladder to the top of a replica of the Old Clubhouse cupola. The colors of the victorious owner's silks are applied on the jockey and horse that are part of the weather vane atop the infield structure. The practice began in 1909 when a horse and rider weather vane sat atop the old Members' Clubhouse, which was constructed when Pimlico opened in 1870. The Victorian building was destroyed by fire in June 1966. A replica of the old building's cupola was built to stand in the Preakness winner's circle in the infield.


Sources (this article was taken directly from):
http://www.preakness-stakes.info/history.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preakness
http://www.preakness.com/

Derby Photos

Spectacular slide show of photos from the Derby last Saturday:

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/05/the_2009_kentucky_derby.html