I was born in Williams, Arizona, on March 4, 1941. My father was an engineer on the Santa Fe Railroad. My grandfather and uncles all worked for the railroad. My maternal grandfather, and, later my step-father, and his father were loggers and sawmill workers. So I grew up in towns along the railroad, and in the logging camps of Northern Arizona.

When I was nine years old, my mother and new step-father took me with them to visit Taos, New Mexico, my mother’s birthplace.

I was captivated by Taos pueblo, and deeply impressed by my mother’s love of the area, which remained strong, even though she had moved to Arizona as a child following the death of her father. Frequently, as they strolled down the sidewalks of Taos, my parents would realize I had vanished. Backtracking, they would find me, entranced, in yet another art gallery.

I still remember, as plainly as though it were happening right now, standing in one of those galleries, watching two men discuss a painting on the wall. It suddenly occurred to me that, somehow,  one of the men was the painting. That the painting was him. And that I was one too! It was at that moment that I became an artist. I knew that whatever else I might do from then on, I would always be an artist.

And I am still an artist. I just look a lot different...

Following High School, I started checking out painting books from the library, and teaching myself to paint. The only books the Flagstaff library had on painting at that time were those on Ted Kautzky, Rex Brandt, and Charles M. Russell. I also had some old Arizona Highways articles on Maynard Dixon and W. R. Leigh.

When I joined the Army in 1959, I was stationed in Los Angeles, where I had access to a broader field of study. I also attended occasional lectures by Rex Brandt, Noel Quinn, and others.

While in the service, I continued to paint in watercolor, read all I could, and enrolled in the Famous Artists’ Schools correspondence course. After a few lessons, I noticed the recurring admonitions, in bold type: YOU LEARN TO PAINT BY PAINTING, and YOU LEARN TO DRAW BY DRAWING. I thought that was about the best advice I would ever get, so I dropped the course, and have concentrated on drawing and painting ever since.

Santa Fe Gallup

Taos Pueblo

Kit Carson Rd Taos, New Mexico

Airport

Cuzco, Peru February, 2005

YOU LEARN TO PAINT BY PAINTING

YOU LEARN TO DRAW BY DRAWING

While that was the end of my formal education, I soon discovered that I was in love with learning, a fact I had lost sight of in high school. It was also the beginning of a lifetime of study. I have studied the works and techniques of the masters and the obscure, of the ancient and the contemporary. I have learned from them all; even, in some cases, by negative example. I am interested in all schools of painting, and all periods.

I don’t believe that any one school or period should render all others irrelevant.  

Whether the work in question is abstract expressionist, minimalist, cowboy, surrealist, or impressionist, doesn’t matter. The only important thing is whether the artist was true to his own vision and how well he was able to realize it.

The only important thing is whether the artist was true to his own vision.

When I returned to Flagstaff, in 1962, I realized how much I had missed the Navajo and Hopi influence in my life. I decided to learn all I could about them, and began reading everything I could find on the subject. I worked for a short time at Northland Press, where I met and worked with Clay Lockett and Don Perceval on A NAVAJO SKETCH BOOK.

There followed a period in which I worked for the maintenance department of the Arizona Highway Department, first in maintenance, out of Williams, Arizona, for a couple of years, then in Phoenix, in the Graphic Arts Department of the Department of Transportation. I painted in my spare time, and joined the Scottsdale Artist’s League, where I volunteered as Membership Chairman, and was later elected President of that organization.

I moved to Scottsdale, where I ran a small private museum and Indian shop, then, in 1965, to the Navajo Reservation, to work for Clarence Wheeler in the trading post at Upper Greasewood, between Lukachukai and Tsaile.

In 1966, back in Flagstaff, I started working as Preparator at the Museum of Northern Arizona, under Barton Wright, the Kachina expert, and helping out in Clay Lockett’s shop at the museum.

At work, I was spending more time on my sketches than on Museum business.

Ned Danson, the Museum Director took me aside, one day, and said:

"Your mind really isn't on your work here, is it?"

"No, sir, " I answered.

"You'd really rather be painting, wouldn't you?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Then go paint. And if you stick with it, I think you might be great some day."

Well, that’s all I needed to hear. I had been planning to quit in a few months, anyway, as soon as I had my courage up, and enough money saved. I’ve often wondered if I would ever have had the nerve, or "enough" money.

I will be forever grateful to both Dr. Danson and Earl Carpenter. Without their encouragement, and Earl’s example, I might never have made it.

"You'd really rather be painting, wouldn't you?"

JOURNAL ENTRY:

Saturday, September 7, 1968:

Up early and hard at it. Did 2 oil on w/c paper characters. Came out real good. Nice effect, too. Could sell very reasonably at $20-25 apiece, and still make wages. So I can paint more. Afternoon -- personal problems. By night very depressed. Financial problems acute. $14.00 left. Rent overdue -- no prospects. Called Dr(?) Gordon. He was supposed to call back but didn’t. Don’t know what to do. Started a landscape on w/c paper -- oil. Bit of a fight.

Soon after, I met a Flagstaff man who agreed to stake me with a $650.00 check if I would return to Greasewood for three months, and bring back enough work to allow him first choice of at least ten 16" x 20" and twenty 8" x 10" paintings.

That was the chance I’d been waiting for. Two and a half months with nothing to do but paint. I borrowed my dad’s camper, which we set up on stands behind the trading post. I spent every day painting, sketching, and walking or riding the washes and hills surrounding the trading post. In the evenings I painted, visited with Clarence Wheeler, the trader, or went with my friend Johnson James to ceremonials, where I sketched and watched in wide eyed wonder.

At the end of the three months, Gordon took his choice of the paintings, and hid them away, then said to me, on a Wednesday:

"We’re having a Christmas party at our house on Friday evening. Just coffee and cookies for some friends. I want you to have these paintings signed and framed and ready for a showing then, because I have to recoup some of my investment."

I said "OK," and went to work. That Friday, with no publicity, and after hiding all his favorites upstairs, he sold over $2,000.00 worth of the remaining paintings.

He asked me what I wanted to do next. I told him I needed a year, at $600.00 per month. By he following day, he had put together a group to sponsor the year. They were to divide all I could produce at a monthly meeting at which they drew straws for first choice, second choice, and so on. I was on my way, and I’ve never looked back.

Peacho Begay and John Farnsworth at Upper Greasewood Trading Post, 1967

For more on Greasewood, my time there, and paintings and sketches from that period, Click Here.

Plein-aire painting in Northern Arizona

JOURNAL ENTRY:

Sunday, September 8, 1968:

Eugene R. Gordon wrote out a check for $650.00 for 2 1/2 months at Greasewood! Took 5 paintings and bear claw necklace as collateral. Leaving next weekend. Close enough, huh? By hell, this is the beginning I’ve dreamed of for years.

The SUN, Flagstaff, Arizona Thursday, January 15, 1970

This is the page from my Greasewood sketchbook that was used to produce the oil painting above. 

The sketches were made behind the hay barn, while Peacho was inside buying provisions. 

The painting was done at night, in my camper.

Click here to meet Peacho.

Click here to see my camper/studio at Greasewood. (Coming soon)

PEACHO'S

SADDLE

Oil on Panel

20" x 16"

Sold

Collection:

Arizona Bank

Phoenix, Arizona

Painting in Oak Creek Canyon, Arizona, 1969

This was followed by a move to Blue, Arizona, on the Blue River, along the Arizona New Mexico border, at the end of a thirty five mile dirt road, to live in an 1880s log cabin. My studio was an old bunk house on top of a log barn.

I continued painting in oils, mostly Indians, or Indian related subjects, until 1973, when I put together another sponsorship which allowed me to live and paint in Mexico for six months.

In 1974, because I was developing lung problems related to painting in oils, I tried some pastels, and found them so intriguing that I worked in them exclusively for about three years, but with the same subject matter.

In 1977, I switched over to oil pastels, and quit painting Indian subjects. I was feeling burned out, and as though I’d been run over by the band-wagon of Indian-subject-popularity. It seemed the subject had become more important than the work. I painted landscapes, people, still lifes, just about everything for a year or so. I also did a few large Kachina faces in oil pastel on canvas, which I found very satisfying.

Mtn. Lion Kachina

In 1979, a friend and collector, Herb Owens, then owner of Turf Paradise, and one of only two or three clients who stuck with me when I quit painting Indians, asked if I would paint a portrait of his race horse. I declined. Over the next few days, though, the idea sort of worked on me, as did some pressing bills. I called him up, and said,

"Alright, if you were serious; I’m ready."

Believe a Little

At about that time, I decided to go back to oils, using just the primary colors and white, as opposed to the hundred or so colors I was accustomed to. I had seen a group of beautiful plein-air paintings by Ned Jacob in Taos years before. Bettina Steinke told me Ned had painted them using just the primaries. When I discovered what had happened to the price of oil paints while I'd been working in dry media, I  suddenly got up the courage to finally try it myself. Also, I wanted to try some more horse paintings, just to see if they really were that difficult. Remuda, my first effort sold immediately to the first person who saw it.

Leather

John and Poco, Santa Fe, 2005

©Vint Miller www.barkingfishdesign.com

One day, as I was driving past the Sheriff’s Posse rodeo grounds in Phoenix, I decided to stop and photograph a group of horses. Somehow, though, I found myself in a pen with a bunch of roping steers, photographing them instead, and wondering what the heck I would ever do with all those photographs. I sure didn’t intend to paint any cows. Before I new what was happening, I had done two large paintings of steers, one of which won Best of Show and the Purchase Award at the State Capitol Celebration of the Arts Exhibit. For seven years, excepting commissions, I painted nothing but cattle and horses. These were not western subjects, really, as I painted race horses and Arabians as well as rodeo stock. In cattle, I found my subjects at auctions, slaughter houses and rodeos. I was mostly interested in subtle colors, textures, shapes, and arrangements of form.

I began showing with Suzanne Brown Gallery in 1979, at about the same time that I started getting commissions from large corporations like IBM , Texas Instruments, and Arco Alaska.

In 1981, I became the first Arizona artist with a major work, Phaedrus, in the then prestigious ARCO collection, in Los Angeles. In 1982, I was commissioned by ARCO ALASKA to do a large painting of Caribou for their offices in Alaska. I went to Anchorage, spent a week there, and flew with a local bush pilot, 200 miles out to a frozen lake where we landed in the middle of a herd of caribou. He was the only pilot in town who would chance the flight, due to weather conditions, and having to fly back through the mountains after dark.

Wejna

In 1983 I was commissioned to do a 20 by 30 foot mural for the Southern California  headquarters of Wells Fargo Bank in Los Angeles.  That took most of a year, and was the most exciting thing I had ever done. (The building was later sold, and the mural, painted on 20 individually stretched linen canvases, now hangs in Phoenix’ Sky Harbor Airport.)

Six weeks in Europe, in 1984, resulted in a series of paintings of horses taken from Old Master paintings. This series continues, and has grown to include dogs and still life as well as horses.  

Gericault

DELACROIX'S SCIO TURK

A visit to the caves at Font de Gaume, near Lascaux, changed my thinking about art. Everything done since that time, seemed to me to have been merely vain strivings.

In 1986, I picked up some watercolors, just to play around, and suddenly remembered that this had been my first love. My lungs were giving me some trouble, and I had a lot of ideas that I hadn’t been getting to in oil, so I switched to watercolor. Now I could paint anything, anywhere. And I did. From trucks passing on the highway to fly fishing. From Mexican markets to trains. From people to still lifes. And the paint itself was thrilling.

ZUÑI OLLA MAIDENS

Pastel

32 x 40 inches

Collection: Dan Cracciolo

GUANAJUATO MARKET

Oil on panel

16" x 20"

NFS

ART YOU CAN LIVE WITH

This was my studio in Valenciana, above Guanajuato, Gto., Mexico in 1973.

GUANAJUATO CLOUD STUDY #1

Oil on panel

10" x 14"

NFS

GUANAJUATO CLOUD STUDY #2

Oil on panel

10" x 14"

NFS

Available as a Giclée Fine Art Print

GUANAJUATO CLOUD STUDY #4

Oil on panel

10" x 14"

NFS

GUANAJUATO CLOUD STUDY #3

Oil on panel

10" x 14"

NFS

Available as a Giclée Fine Art Print

These oil on panel cloud studies were painted en plein-air while I was living in Guanajuato, Gto. Mexico, in 1973. My friend and neighbor, Joe Orr, and I spent many memorable afternoons painting the villages and skies surrounding Guanajuato.

KIVA
(Koyemsim, or Mudhead Kachinas)
Oil on Masonite panel
48" X 48"
NFS

Photo: Dewain Maney

Detail

PEACHO BEGAY
Oil on Masonite
9 x 12 inches
NFS
One of many portraits I did of Peacho during my time at greasewood. For some now unknown reason, I quit before adding the spotted effect of his Albinism, which is common among the Navajo people.

HAMMING IT UP ON THE RESERVATION with Earl Carpenter and Stella and Della Peshlakai.

Photo: Dewain Maney

I opened my home in Flagstaff, Arizona, by appointment, as a Studio/Gallery in 1969, and continued spending time during the summer months painting in Taos and Santa Fe, and in the pueblos along the Rio Grande.

In 1970, I had my first, last, and only one man show at the dynamic Avis Read's "Stables Gallery". The show was a success, but I had grown accustomed, along with Earl Carpenter, to showing and selling my own work directly to clients from Palm Springs to Tucson and Taos, and seldom had enough pieces together at one time for a one man show.

In 1970, I moved to Pojoaque, near Santa Fe, and lived on Louise Trigg McKinney’s beautiful estate, Las Acequias, and began showing with the Margaret Jamison Gallery, when it was across from the La Fonda Hotel, at the end of the Santa Fe Trail.

Just below the adobe casita that I lived in, there was an old mill. There were two ponds there. One was full of tadpoles and the other wasn’t. So, using one of the tadpoles from the first pond, I was able to pull this fine bass from the other.

WITH FRIDAY KINŁICHINEE in the rug room at Hubbel’s Trading Post National Historic Site, at Ganado, Arizona. Friday was a medicine man who also worked for many years at Hubbell’s. He was quite a dandy (that’s his hat, not mine) and was fond of hiking up the sleeves of his jacket so you were sure not to miss his many fine and beautiful turquoise and silver bracelets.