Flashbacks



R-BAR   1985 oil   24" x 36"
Left to right, Leo Wright with brothers Gord and Morgan Wilson


Summer has finally arrived and we've been enjoying a lot of visitors and getting out frequently in the R-Pod.  Which means there has been little painting going on and therfore I have nothing new to show you.  Recently, I have had a series of amazing flashbacks and so I thought you might enjoy a story about one.

In 1976 and for five years, Bill's first Ranger posting was at Chain Lakes Provincial Park, close to where we live now.  There we met and were embraced by neighbours, the Wilsons.  I incubated images of their ranching life for a good five years, and it wasn't until after we'd moved away that I finally began to paint it.  Who knew that once I got started I would go on such a roll?  To the extent that a curator once said "You have enough cow paintings to launch an entire exhibition of just them ... but not in my gallery!"

About a decade ago a woman telephoned to announce that she had the above painting and asked if I would like it back?  As the new owner of Conquest Art she had found it in a closet, didn't want it and didn't know what to do with it.  I'd always thought it had been sold and never dreamed I'd ever see it again.  But, she advised that it had been leased out.  Since I'd always mourned selling it, I happily agreed to her proposal of exchanging it for a landscape of the same size.  And that's how it came to be back in our collection, hanging above the fireplace in the den.

Leo's Mother, Ruth Wright, June 3rd, 2011

Last month I notified the winners of The Claresholm Art Club's raffle.  It was established on the phone that, as fate would have it, one of the recipients was Ruth Wright, Leo's Mother!  When she came to collect her prize we had a wonderful visit and I shared with her the painting's provenance while Bill made a print of it for her.  Pretty cool, eh?