I was raised on a small ranch in Stephens County, Texas, but we were pretenders, not ranchers. Although my father loved to ride, he was in the five-n-dime store business and the land was leased to REAL ranchers with real cowboys, but from these men I learned. This little kid observed… real cowboys.

 

From these men and my father, I learned how to work hard, how to show respect, how to be humble, how to lead, and how to dream. Each time the ranch foreman asked me to ride fence, I didn’t care that it was the lowest, most menial job. I was a cowboy!  

I fed stock, gathered cows, hunted predators, helped with doctoring and branding… until the romance finally wore off, but the love never did. I love it still.

 

Today I have the best job! I still observe real cowboys, male and female, some of the brightest and toughest. I get to create snapshots of their lives as they intersect yours, in oil paintings, watercolor, and sculpture. At first, in 2007, it was a terrible fulltime career move, but it’s turned out alright. You’ve been very good to me.

 

As a cowboy, I’ll forever be a greenhorn and I’m still a pretty sorry hand, but I hope I can fill a small role in telling part of the story that makes the American West touch something deep inside our collective psyche, that place where we are all cowboys.

 

Now I’ve come home. Saint Jo, Texas. Where the Chisholm Trail launched cowboys across the Red River and into the pages of history and our American cowboy lore.

 

And I get to ride fence.