July 14, 2005
Yesterday, I finished a painting for a big Texas event we are co-sponsoring (The Old West Show!). Abby Pearson designed the ad for it and finished it at about three. Crystal launched the layout into cyberspace so the client could see the ad, and the owner, Susan Franks, loved the piece so much she bought the original painting from me. That was timely because I have a framer coming by today to pick up some of my Blaze Away! artwork and he wants an advance to buy moulding, etc. and this helps pay for that. The artshow is going to be quite expensive. I plan on framing over 100 pieces of art and at $100 to $200 a frame, well, you do the math.

On the Tom Mix never wearing a Tom Mix style hat controversy, I got this observation from Jim Hatzell this morning:

"The closest I can come to your Tom Mix wearing a sugar loaf sombrero with the crease you described, is a photo in your own May 2005 Magazine. (page 70 in the article about Seth Bullock) Mr Mix is in the front row, third from the right. It was taken almost 100 years ago, before he had ever appeared in a motion picture."
—Jim Hatzell

Good eye, Jim. Yes, it could be construed that the hat crease in the photo is at least half a Tom Mix. So I will buy you half a lunch next time you're out. And speaking of Jim Hatzell, he has his annual Artist Ride in August where he gathers great models from Native Americans to horse soldiers, to mountain men and gunfighters on this ranch and then the artists fly up there and spend the weekend photographing and sketching these great models in a Western setting. I have been trying to attend for the past five years but so far I haven’t been able to make it. Unfortunately this year, my high school reunion is the same weekend (August 19-20). You can see a feature on the Artist Ride in the current issue (July) of Smithsonian magazine.

Because of the crunch for the September issue, which goes to the printer on Monday, I got a two week extension on the CGII book, and we will need to attack that project with both hands and feet to finish. I have a goal of doing 20 more illustrations, and I'm going home early for lunch today to work on the Morgan Earp pool players, among other things. In the past I've flirted with disaster on deadlines on this, and in the future I intend to change, but at crunchtime I've always made it. Perhaps Henry David Thoreau has something to say about this.

"I live in the present. I only remember the past and anticipate the future. I love to live!"
—Henry David Thoreau