Doug Candelaria, Pueblo artist

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.”