By Dan Cunningham
PUEBLO – For at least six hours every day, Douglas Candelaria paints scenes of the cowboy and the American West.
All of his hard work has paid off, as he is now a noted local artist who recently concluded an exhibit of his work at the Sangre de Christo Arts Center in Pueblo. His work is also represented at the L.I.W. Cargo Gallery in Colorado Springs.
Candelaria is an accepted and accomplished member of the Pueblo area arts community, members of whom are holding a clearance art sale at Red Raven Arts Studio in the Bessemer District, 1143 S. Evans Ave.
A native of Durango, Candelaria has always been interested in art.
“As far back as I can remember I was drawing on paper. My mom would go shopping and when she would get back she would empty the groceries and give me the paper bags to draw on.
“Ii would copy from the comic books — Roy Rogers and Gene Autrey.”
Candelaria recalls that Fred Harman, who drew the Red Ryder comic strip and books, was from Pagosa Springs near Durango.
He studied art in junior high and high school, but he admits “they really did not teach you anything.”
Candelaria still remembers his art teacher from those long ago days, Alice Bay.
“I was her pet. She knew I loved to draw.”
After graduation he joined the Air Force for four years, where he worked on air target charts used by B-52 pilots on bombing runs. Then he went to work for the Bureau of Land Management and the U. S. Geologic Survey as a mapmaker.
Away from his work at the Denver Federal Center, Candelaria would teach himself how to draw and paint fine art, using books and videos.
In the 1970s and ‘80s he primarily exhibited his work in the metropolitan Denver area.
In 1994 his first wife, Jean, developed a terminal illness and he retired from the government to care for her until she died in 1997.
He subsequently married Dolores Montoya, formerly of Rocky Ford, and in the year 2000 they moved to Pueblo to live in a smaller town.
Candelaria also began to realize he needed more formal instruction from other successful artists.
“Like one artist said: ‘ you cannot learn everything by yourself. You do not hear of a pilot teaching himself to fly.”
Much of his instruction has been with Tim Dieble of Walsenburg, a nationally known landscape artist.
Dieble has shown Candelaria how to paint landscapes and backgrounds for his Western art so that his art is more correct.
He has also taken classes through Pueblo artist Marty Brens, who operates Art in the Aspens, which brings in noted artists for instruction.
“She has some of the best art teachers in the country,” said Candelaria, noting that the classes are taught in various places in the Rocky Mountains, including his native Durango.
His favorite subject matter, the cowboy and scenes of the west, is a lifelong fascination.
“It never went away…I never was a cowboy or lived on a ranch.”
Candelaria now lives for his art.
“I paint at least six hours a day, every day. I love to paint. That is as simple as I can put it. It is an addiction, actually.”
He never gets “painters block.”
“I have a million ideas. I would have to live 400 years to paint all the ideas I want to paint.”
Monday, February 11, 2008
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Barbara Busey
By Dan Cunningham
“Art is something I really enjoy. I think it has added to my life,” says Barbara Busey.
Barbara is the current artist on display at Old Trail Gallery in the John W. Rawlings Heritage Center, Sixth Street and Bent Avenue.
Her display of artwork includes the first, tentative drawings she made of a dog, people, a windmill and a house.
“My mother saved them,” she says with a laugh.
Her art has obviously come a long way, judging by her more recent attempts to depict a pioneer home, a small town street and the colorful scenery around Ghost Ranch in New Mexico.
Still, her progress in art was delayed because there was no formal art instruction in Las Animas in the days of her childhood and her teen years.
It wasn’t until she enrolled at Western State College in Gunnison that she took her first formal class. She eventually graduated with a major in education and two minor degrees in both art and English. Her college years had an interruption, though, when she married Ben Millikan of Manzanola while she was a sophomore. He was a Naval pilot and was killed in an accidental plane crash while doing recreational flying with his squadron. His death left behind a widow, and two children.
Barbara returned to Gunnison to finish her degree and embark on a teaching career. She began teaching elementary school, but after a few years were able to teach art to both elementary and high school students.
While teaching in Gunnison she met and then married Larry Busey, of Grand Junction.
“He was in the business department at Western State. He had a little boy, so we had three children to take care of.”
While raising their blended family and working, their lives began to travel down a different path.
Barbara had always been interested in the American Indians and her husband became interested in the culture and the people.
They met a Navajo Indian and together they all opened Two Rivers Trading Post in Gunnison, which offered native art and crafts. The Busey family was happily operating this business on the side until the late 1960s.
“We saw this advertisement for an Indian trading post down near Shiprock, New Mexico. We went down to see it.”
They liked what they saw. Barbara quit her job; Larry quit his job. Their children were out of high school and so the couple moved to Fruitland, N. M.
“The store was established in at least 1886. We do not know for sure how far back it went,” Barbara relates.
“We liked it. We liked the climate. We got along real well with the Navajo. We increased the business quite a bit. About 95 percent of our trade was with the Indians.
Their new trading post venture offered food and dry goods, supplies and hardware.
“We pawned. There was a slaughterhouse out back. We made a lot of friends.”
When her husband Larry died in 1989, her son Paul Millikan ran the business together for another six years until it was sold in 1995.
Barbara moved back to her hometown of Las Animas, where she still had two sisters, though both are now deceased. One was Martha Lowe, the mother of former Bent County Democrat owner Jack Lowe, and Katie Bono.
Today, Paul Milliken has a construction business in Farmington, N. M. His sister, Janice Lloyd, lives in Honolulu where her husband recently retired after serving as a U. S. Marshal. Barbara’s stepson, Tony Busey, lives in New York and works for a large international construction company.
Barbara has one grandchild.
She continued her art education by taking classes when she was in New Mexico. Since returning, she has taken classes at Otero Junior College. Barbara also went on to art trips sponsored by OJC — one was to Italy and the second trip, a longer one of three weeks, took in the British Isles and ended up Paris.
Since moving back to Las Animas, Barbara has also vacationed at the Ghost Ranch, a 22,000-acre spread owned by the Presbyterian Church. The ranch offers visitors the opportunity to stay for one or more weeks while taking classes in art, music or religious studies.
Barbara currently works in watercolor and pastel and her exhibit includes a collage.
“I like to draw. I do not do oil painting any more.”
Locally, Barbara has taught a watercolor class but her own production has slowed because she is quite busy as the art guilt president and as a member of the Pioneer Historical Society.
Her interest in art is wide ranging.
“I like to look at it. I enjoy doing it. I like to read about it. But art is more of a hobby now.”
She confesses she has never entered any serious competition — except for the Eads art show.
Her favorite subject matter includes landscapes, old buildings and flowers.
But looking back on her life as a whole, she sums up:
“It has been interesting, to say the least.”
“Art is something I really enjoy. I think it has added to my life,” says Barbara Busey.
Barbara is the current artist on display at Old Trail Gallery in the John W. Rawlings Heritage Center, Sixth Street and Bent Avenue.
Her display of artwork includes the first, tentative drawings she made of a dog, people, a windmill and a house.
“My mother saved them,” she says with a laugh.
Her art has obviously come a long way, judging by her more recent attempts to depict a pioneer home, a small town street and the colorful scenery around Ghost Ranch in New Mexico.
Still, her progress in art was delayed because there was no formal art instruction in Las Animas in the days of her childhood and her teen years.
It wasn’t until she enrolled at Western State College in Gunnison that she took her first formal class. She eventually graduated with a major in education and two minor degrees in both art and English. Her college years had an interruption, though, when she married Ben Millikan of Manzanola while she was a sophomore. He was a Naval pilot and was killed in an accidental plane crash while doing recreational flying with his squadron. His death left behind a widow, and two children.
Barbara returned to Gunnison to finish her degree and embark on a teaching career. She began teaching elementary school, but after a few years were able to teach art to both elementary and high school students.
While teaching in Gunnison she met and then married Larry Busey, of Grand Junction.
“He was in the business department at Western State. He had a little boy, so we had three children to take care of.”
While raising their blended family and working, their lives began to travel down a different path.
Barbara had always been interested in the American Indians and her husband became interested in the culture and the people.
They met a Navajo Indian and together they all opened Two Rivers Trading Post in Gunnison, which offered native art and crafts. The Busey family was happily operating this business on the side until the late 1960s.
“We saw this advertisement for an Indian trading post down near Shiprock, New Mexico. We went down to see it.”
They liked what they saw. Barbara quit her job; Larry quit his job. Their children were out of high school and so the couple moved to Fruitland, N. M.
“The store was established in at least 1886. We do not know for sure how far back it went,” Barbara relates.
“We liked it. We liked the climate. We got along real well with the Navajo. We increased the business quite a bit. About 95 percent of our trade was with the Indians.
Their new trading post venture offered food and dry goods, supplies and hardware.
“We pawned. There was a slaughterhouse out back. We made a lot of friends.”
When her husband Larry died in 1989, her son Paul Millikan ran the business together for another six years until it was sold in 1995.
Barbara moved back to her hometown of Las Animas, where she still had two sisters, though both are now deceased. One was Martha Lowe, the mother of former Bent County Democrat owner Jack Lowe, and Katie Bono.
Today, Paul Milliken has a construction business in Farmington, N. M. His sister, Janice Lloyd, lives in Honolulu where her husband recently retired after serving as a U. S. Marshal. Barbara’s stepson, Tony Busey, lives in New York and works for a large international construction company.
Barbara has one grandchild.
She continued her art education by taking classes when she was in New Mexico. Since returning, she has taken classes at Otero Junior College. Barbara also went on to art trips sponsored by OJC — one was to Italy and the second trip, a longer one of three weeks, took in the British Isles and ended up Paris.
Since moving back to Las Animas, Barbara has also vacationed at the Ghost Ranch, a 22,000-acre spread owned by the Presbyterian Church. The ranch offers visitors the opportunity to stay for one or more weeks while taking classes in art, music or religious studies.
Barbara currently works in watercolor and pastel and her exhibit includes a collage.
“I like to draw. I do not do oil painting any more.”
Locally, Barbara has taught a watercolor class but her own production has slowed because she is quite busy as the art guilt president and as a member of the Pioneer Historical Society.
Her interest in art is wide ranging.
“I like to look at it. I enjoy doing it. I like to read about it. But art is more of a hobby now.”
She confesses she has never entered any serious competition — except for the Eads art show.
Her favorite subject matter includes landscapes, old buildings and flowers.
But looking back on her life as a whole, she sums up:
“It has been interesting, to say the least.”
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Bud Spurgeon
By DAN CUNNINGHAM
HASTY — Bud Spurgeon was being interviewed when a report of a truck fire caused him to race out of Valley Grocery.
A neighbor’s pickup truck had caught on fire a few blocks away in Hasty, where he lives.
A few weeks later he was out on the road, driving a truck, and would not be back until after Christmas.
Obviously a busy man who is rooted in his community as well as the wider world, Bud has an interesting hobby — creating art from wood, barbed wire and other materials he finds innovative uses for.
Some of his work is on display at Valley Grocery, such as the mockup of the store itself as well as some rural scenes.
On the front wall is a sample of his barbed wire art.
Bud said he took up wood carving “just to use a knife.”
Though his creations are for sale, he does not advertise.
If he did, demand would pick up and he would feel “pressured to produce,” he confessed.
He prefers to express his art as a hobby.
On the day he was contacted, Bud walked into Valley Grocery holding two of his latest creations, baskets made from lariats.
He also has made doghouses, play houses and model barns.
“I have won grand champion at Bent County, Lamar, Holly and Eads,” he said.
Bud also gives a new slant for recycling, because much of the material he uses for his art is picked up at auctions and sales.
Some of his work is for sale at Valley Grocery, otherwise you’ll have to catch up with him.
HASTY — Bud Spurgeon was being interviewed when a report of a truck fire caused him to race out of Valley Grocery.
A neighbor’s pickup truck had caught on fire a few blocks away in Hasty, where he lives.
A few weeks later he was out on the road, driving a truck, and would not be back until after Christmas.
Obviously a busy man who is rooted in his community as well as the wider world, Bud has an interesting hobby — creating art from wood, barbed wire and other materials he finds innovative uses for.
Some of his work is on display at Valley Grocery, such as the mockup of the store itself as well as some rural scenes.
On the front wall is a sample of his barbed wire art.
Bud said he took up wood carving “just to use a knife.”
Though his creations are for sale, he does not advertise.
If he did, demand would pick up and he would feel “pressured to produce,” he confessed.
He prefers to express his art as a hobby.
On the day he was contacted, Bud walked into Valley Grocery holding two of his latest creations, baskets made from lariats.
He also has made doghouses, play houses and model barns.
“I have won grand champion at Bent County, Lamar, Holly and Eads,” he said.
Bud also gives a new slant for recycling, because much of the material he uses for his art is picked up at auctions and sales.
Some of his work is for sale at Valley Grocery, otherwise you’ll have to catch up with him.
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