December 3, 2008
Spoke today at the Booth Western Art Museum in Cartersville, Georgia. Almost a full house on hand in the auditorium and we had a grand time talking about all things Western and True West.

Lots of great art here. Just spectacular. Really enjoyed the galleries. My fave paintings: a huge mural by Maynard Dixon which was allegedly painted for a San Francisco cafe, I believe called Kit Carson's. The actual name of the painting is "Red Butte And Mountain Men." I sat and looked at it this morning for about fifteen minutes. Really a stunner. The other show stopper is a small oil by James Reynolds called "Diamond A Cowboy". Other wonderful images painted by Kenneth Riley, Howard Terpning ("Legend of Geronimo"), my old neighbor Roy Anderson ("Apache White Water"), James Bama, Paul Calle, Fred Fellows, William P. Henderson, E. Martin Hennings ("Branding Time" believe it or not a major inspiration for Honkytonk Sue and the Doper Roper), Harry Jackson and William Robinson Leigh. I'm telling you, the Booth Western Art Museum is a stunner. One of the best kep secrets of the southeast.

Seth Hopkins, the executive director of Booth Western Museum, invited me to doodle an original rendering in their guest room. I whipped out a felt tipped pen rendering of "El Kid" for the wall, right next to Thom Ross's rendering of Wyatt Earp. They didn't have any gouache paints, so I used thick, felt-tipped markers.

Also took a bunch of photos in front of the "mud wagon" stage coach which Western Artist Fred Fellows sold to the museum. Lots of good reference photos, which Cheryl Kennedy printed out for me. I have been fretting about mud wagon reference for weeks and I fly to the east coast and here it is. Amazing.

Flying home in the morning.

"There are very few people who don't become more interesting when they stop talking."
—Mary Lowry