Tucson Book Festival In The Rearview

March 15, 2016
   Met lots of fine people at the Tucson Book Festival this last weekend. I love this event because everyone there (135,000) is from my tribe: they love to read real books! Here is a typical book babe who wanted her photo taken with me. Sweet, eh? Hey, somebody's got to do it!

Tucson Book Babe

Worked hard, but also had time to party a little bit with my friends.

Three Amigos:

Jeb Rosebrook, BBB and John Langellier at Maynard Dixon's house on Saturday night.

"You have to go east to discover the west."

—Maynard Dixon, who moved from San Francisco to Tucson in his last years

Tucson Festival of Books

March 13, 2016
   In The Old Pueblo for The Tucson Festival of Books. Staying at Maynard Dixon's house thanks to John Langellier. Here he is at the party last night, in Maynard's kitchen, lower right, spinning a windy. Great time with all the Western Writers of America who also have a booth at the festival.

John Langallier takes aim at the truth.

"Here I was in the midst of The Real Thing—my western world—and my mind was set to tell the truth of it on paper and canvas and that meant work. It meant constant observation and constant drawing."
—Maynard Dixon

The Coyote Returns

March 11, 2016
   Mickey Free skirted the fires still burning along the border, but wading through the ash and soot on the burnt landscape slowed him down considerably. And by the time he made Fronteras, he was a gray ghost.

Daily Whip Out: "The Coyote Returns"

"The Arivaipa would come to call the kidnapped boy Coyote, after their trickster god, because they could never decide if he was friend or foe."
—Paul Andrew Hutton, in his forthcoming masterpiece, "The Apache Wars"

Mickey Free On His Mammoth Jack

March 10, 2016
   Grabbing a couple hangouts before I go to Tucson. Here's one:

Daily Whip Out: "Mickey Free On His Mammoth Jack"

"You need a hero to bring order to a very chaotic world. Especially when you're a child. You need somebody, even if it's a fictional character, to tell you that the world makes sense and that the good guys can win. That's what heroes are for."

—cartoonist Frank Miller, "300"

Apache Perspective Weeping Professors And Vanishing Points

March 10, 2016
   Finishing up the Apache Wars coverage for our May issue, which goes to press a week from today. Finished an interview with The Top Secret Writer this morning, which will anchor the issue. If you've ever wondered if professors can weep, over the death of dogs, read on, for a sneak peek quotation.

Daily Whip Out: "Sonoran Vaquero On The Lope"

   This morning I also shadowed Maynard Dixon's lighting techniques from one of his paintings of an Apache which we used on the cover of True West way back when. 

Daily Whip Out: "Dramatic Apache Poach From Maynard Dixon"

Studying the masters (or, more specifically stealing from them), and learning how to draw—watched lectures No. 17 and 18 taught by Prof. David Brody:

Daily Whip Out: "How to Draw Sketches, March 6-7, 2016"

   Learning some stuff. May throw my hat in the ring at some point. Here is the quote about a certain professor weeping on his yellow legal pad:

"When the Americans came the Apaches had to abandon their dogs to avoid detection by the army patrols. Later, on the reservation, they reunited with their  beloved pets. One of the most heart-wrenching stories of my book deals with the fate of the Fort  Apache Reservation dogs when the Apaches were removed to Florida. I write long hand on yellow-sheet  tablets, and I literally shed tears all over those pages when composing that chapter."

—Paul Andrew Hutton, in an exclusive interview with True West

Tim Prythero Recreates Al Bell's Flying A

March 9, 2016
   Thirty years later, I finally got the legendary artist Tim Prythero to do an homage to my father's gas station on Hilltop in Kingman, circa 1957. I first saw his work in a New Mexico magazine many years ago and swore, someday I would get him to do my dad's gas station. The years went by and I never could find the time or a way to contact the artist (typically, after several moves, I forgot his name, and lost the magazine). Well, last year, when Kathy and I were in Santa Fe for the taping of the second season of "Gunslingers" we visited the New Mexico Museum of Art and I saw one of his Route 66 Curios pieces and there was his name. A simple Google search later, I captured his gallery and the next thing I knew, Tim was working from photos of Al Bell's Flying A from "The 66 Kid." Here is a sneak peek (it's not quite finished):

Tim will be showing this miniature along with some of his other roadside classics from Route 66 this weekend at the Scottsdale Arts Festival in Old Town Scottsdale. Tim's booth is #14, near Main and Brown.  Check it out. Al Bell's Flying A lives on!

"Fill it with 100+ Octane, ma'am?"
—Standard greeting for every car that pulled onto the tarmac at Al Bell's Flying A

Frankly, My Dear, I don't Give A Continental

March 8, 2016
   Great feature in The Hollywood Reporter about "Hollywood's 100 Favorite Movie Lines," and how the classic line "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn," from Gone With The Wind almost didn't make the final cut. The studio was very nervous about using such a strong swear word—"damn"—and apparently asked the writer to come up with 20 alternatives. Here are my favorite three (in terms of  crazy/funny/awfulness):

"Frankly, my dear, it makes my gorge rise."

"Frankly, my dear, I don't give a Continental."

"Frankly, my dear, the whole thing is a stench in my nostrils."

   Just goes to show, how hard it is to be bold, in the face of caution. The decision to run "damn" seems easy in retrospect (and, by extension, it seems, to our ears, harmless and self-evident), but at the time it was very, very bold and scary for the creators. This is the kind of decisions we all face daily. Wish I could say I was bolder than I really am, but I'm not.

Apache Kid headgear?

   We are doing a cover story on The Apache Kid and we are using a photo of the Kid which is somewhat contentious, or more accurately questionable. It's a cool photo and the Kid has a unique headband. We were looking for other Apache photos yesterday and I ran across this one and noticed that the middle scout is wearing the same exact headband. I asked the Top Secret Writer about it and this is his response:

   "Yes that is the same fellow but without the jacket. He is in another Fly photo standing by some rocks with soldiers. All these were taken by Fly at the Crook/Geronimo surrender meeting. Mrs. Fly later did the ID on Kid as the Apache Kid in the little book she published of the photos (she also said Massai was in the trio photo). It looks more like Kid in the other two photos than in the trio photo. But its the same Apache scout. Is it really him? Beats me." 

"Do you suffer when you write? I don't at all. I suffer like mad when I don't write, or just before, and feel empty. But never feel as good as while writing."

-—Ernest Hemingway 

Mickey Free Reads The Clouds for Sign

March 8, 2016
   He saw things in the clouds that others missed. Was he enlightened, or just plumb crazy superstitious? Considering he was equal parts Irish, Mexican and Apache, take your pick. 

Daily Whip Out: "Mickey Free Reads The Clouds for Sign"

   Of course, one woman never got over the loss of her son:

Daily Whip Out: "Mickey's Mom Grieves"

Another woman who played a part in the defense of Apacheria was this lady:

Daily Whip Out: "Lozen, from a photograph"

"Mickey got mad. When you're his age and fought all your life and walk from one end of the world to the other end on foot, you get mad but you don't want to fight no more."

—Ethlay's niece, as quoted by Paul Andrew Hutton in his new book "The Apache Wars"

Standing On The Head of Rattlesnake Ridge

March 7, 2016
   Attacking some of the dogs in the dog pile. Here is one that came out of left field. Weird sky—kind of hokey—kept it, and added foreground. 

Daily Whip Out:

"The Apache Kid Stood On The Head of Rattlesnake Ridge And Laughed at His Pursuers."

   Deep in Sonora, Mickey Free meets up with two Americans, Tom Horn and "Trigger" Jim Young (A Texas John Slaughter cowboy who is not known as "Trigger" but, it's, well, you know what I mean). Understandably, the one-eyed captivo doesn't want their help but they are thrown together by a strange pickle when they meet the bandido named Dorothy: 

Daily Whip Out: The Mexican Bandido Doroteo Arrango"

   It's interesting that the spaghetti Westerns styled it as Bandito, which is either Italian, or. Sergio and crew just dug the approximation to the spelling of "bandit." The Spanish style it as "bandido." Meanwhile, south of Tres Castillos:

Daily Whip Out: "And Then There Were Three"

   All of these characters will meet in the Sierra Madre and the results won't be pretty. Mickey Free is the coyote—the trickster who plays the pistol in the poncho maneuver to great effect.

"That miserable little coyote!” 
—Kaywaykla, referring to Mickey Free. As quoted by Paul Andrew Hutton in his forthcoming book, "The Apache Wars"

My Dog Pile From The Air

March 6, 2016
   We kicked some major patootie yesterday down at Cattle Track Arts Compound. Lots of red dots (9), sold some books (31) and thanks to a musical accompaniment from Jack Alves, backed by Mark McDowell, I got on stage and we did a roaring, and completely obnoxious rendition of "Louie Louie" and—thanks to a request from Michele Gilpin—"Gloria." When I helped Jack load out his equipment (something drummers everywhere are loathe to do but this was my way of making up for past sins) I said to Jack, "Well, I think it's safe to say, nobody has seen an art opening quite like this one." We laughed and laughed. It was muy grunge band meets muy garage sale art opening. Oh, and as if that wasn't enough rockin' in the free world, we had the best damn tacos I've had in a long time, thanks to this muchacho:

El Toro Taco Truck

   Now that the opening is behind me, I got up this morning and decided to take a good hard look at my dog pile. And, by dog pile, I mean what I have referred to in the past as my discard pile, failure pile, half-finished-but-might-have-potential pile. I settled on the title "dog pile," because most of these are dogs, but every once in a while, I save one and, in turn, it saves me. You might call it a rescue. Four piles were in the garage and three were in my studio, so I combined them, took them outside and laid them out on the driveway. Needless to say it took up some real estate:

An Aerial View of My Dog Pile

   They look small, ganged together like this, but most of these are 8X10", or larger, so you will have some idea of the amount of painting attempts in this picture. Remember the scene in "The Shining" when we finally see what Jack Nicholson has been typing for months? I think this scene has a bit of that kind of craziness and psychological meaning. And by the way, I had to get up on top of the garage to get it all in the photo. There was a distinctive falling away towards the top, so I got back down and exaggerated the outside borders by stacking outwards towards the top, which gives it the appearance of a square shape. Here's how it looked before I did that:

Dog Pile Before Perspective Fix

   Many half-finished skies, of course. Lots of clouds. I see faces where faces weren't intended. I see Diltche from our "Outrageous Arizona" project, I see Pat Garrett holding a Winchester, I see Billy the kid, I see Beauty and Mickey Free with a half-finished head in his left hand. I see horses masquerading as clouds, I see several vaqueros riding half-finished horses, I see numerous scenes of The Walk Down, I see campfires and rendezvous's and I see unfinished women and Hogtown Husseys. And yes I see dust, lots of dust. Shotgun Mary is here and a rare Bob Dalton running towards us in Death Alley as bullets spray all around him, I see lightning strikes, the subtle effects, of which, continue to elude me. I see a couple heatwave highways and I also see a sweet little beehive hairdo facing into the wind. I see Frederick Remington drawing an Apache by placing his drawing pad on the back of Tom Horn. And last but not least I see an opening in the sky. Third row from bottom, far right, a cloud noodling with some nice subtle effects I could not see up close. It took me climbing up on the roof of my garage to see the potential. Well, that was worth the exercise, right there.

Daily Whip Out: "The Cloud Opening"

"Even a blind dog finds an acorn once in a while."
—Old Dogpile saying

Last Call for Free Mexican Food!

March 5, 2016
   Brent Bond of Santo Press hand printed every single page of "Vincent van Gunfighter," and then hand collated them. Here he is on Thursday afternoon putting them together. A labor of love it was. The edition is 100 books, $150 each. Goes on sale to the public at one p.m. today at Cattle Track Arts Compound in Scottsdale. Hey, free Mexican food.

"I absolutely guarantee that with my signature in these books, someday it will be worth the cover price."
—Old BBB Saying

Tractor Love

March 5, 2016
   Today is the big day of the Vincent van Gunfighter Art Show at Cattle Track. We've already sold 15 books and 7 pieces of artwork. Here is the founder of the feast:

Mark McDowell getting amorous with his newly purchased Farmall.

Mark fell in love with this implement during a recent art show at Cattle Track featuring tractors. He bought it and plans to draw a lifesize drawing, on panel board, of the sweet little piece of farm machinery.

"Typical artist, falling in love with his model."

—John Langellier

Neato Keen-oh With Trio Rio

March 4, 2016
   Partied down at the pre-party party for my art show at Cattle Track Art Compound tonight. Here I am shooting off my fingers on stage with the legendary Trio Rio, plus one, at the end of their set:

Still hammin' it up after all these years

"Ah, Mr. Bell, wasn't it this kind of hammin' that got you in trouble eight years ago?"

—That little voice on your shoulder

The Stitchers Kept Me In Stitches

March 4, 2016
   Spent most of the day yesterday, down at Cattle Track, as Mark McDowell and Brent Bond put everyone through their paces to get the "Vincent van Gunfighter" book finished in time for tomorrow's show. Here is the scene in the front room of the gallery, where four volunteer stitchers were hand sewing the binding in 100 books.

Slave driver with an imaginary whip pretending to switch the stitchers who kept me in stitches.

   They are Ace Bailey, Chance Phillips, Mary Corcoran and Dixie Guerrero (Pedro's wife). Great gals and, as I mentioned they were not getting paid, they just love art and getting together, so it had a sewing circle vibe. I think Brent ended up comping them an artist proof copy of the book. Me, I signed my name 600 times: something I'm getting pretty damn good at. There are four art prints in the back of each hand-made book, so that's 400 signatures, then 100 books to be signed and then all the artist proofs and printers proofs. It was fun. It's been a great project.

   Mark also helped me hang the show. 39 framed pieces of art. Here are my notes on what I'm charging for each piece:

Cattle Track Art Show Price List

Daily Whip Out: "Vincent's Pipe Dream"

The original is in the show and is priced at $750. Such a deal.

"If collecting is a disease I am a carrier."

—Old Artist Saying

Apache Medicine Man & Not Letting Sleeping Dogs Lie

March 4, 2016
   I was culling my dog pile this morning and found an Apache medicine man that I felt needed a little tweak, or two, especially on the interior smoke, since he's preaching invincibility. Spitting up bullets was a favorite trick, as if the bullets fired at him could not harm him. 

Daily Whip Out: "San Carlos Medicine Man"

   Speaking of not letting sleeping dogs lie, I started to file another "finished" painting, or, more accurately, put the painting where Curator Cal could file it, when I thought it also needed some work So, I tried to bring out the Kid's face a bit more, without going too far (always a tricky dilemma).

Daily Whip Out: "Bring Me The Head of The Apache Kid, 2.50"

"Better is the enemy of good, as in, I think I can make this better."

—Old ADD Artist

The Apache Kid Cover Studies

March 3, 2016
   Working on a couple ideas for the next issue, including our exclusive coverage of Mickey Free and The Apache Kid, thanks to the Top Secret Writer.

Daily Whip Outs: "Studies for The Apache Kid Stands Defiant"

Daily Whip Outs: "More Sketches of The Apache Kid Stands Defiant"

Daily Whip Out: "Apache Kid" study

Daily Whip Out: "Bring Me The Head of The Apache Kid"

Dan The Man's rough treatment of a possible Kid cover

"I knew men who could put seven arrows in the air before the first one that was fired fell to earth."

—An Apache warrior, as quoted in Paul Andrew Hutton's forthcoming "The Apache Wars"