This article by Ray Spitzenberger first appeared in April 21, IMAGES for East Bernard Express, East Bernard, Texas.
Now that I am no longer in the pulpit regularly (in fact, not at all anymore), the major church festivals, like Christmas and Easter, come and go in an eye blink, or so it seems. However, they still hold a deep spiritual meaning for me, I don’t want to give the impression they don’t.
As I think about Christmas gifts this Monday after Easter, I guess it will sound a little “unspiritual.” Nonetheless, it occurred to me this day after Easter that I had an art satchel full of untouched Christmas presents.
For Christmas, my family and friends had blessed me with many wonderful art supplies, making me the proud owner of a large collection of my favorite Micron drawing pens along with those superb Bristol drawing pads, plus paints.
During the nearly five months that have flitted by since Christmas, I have not created one piece of art. The supplies have remained buried in their satchel. I can’t explain why that was true, but in the glow of Easter joy, the desire to take up those pens and pads and sketch, sketch, sketch is great!
To be sure, from the earliest days of childhood on, I have loved to draw more than to paint, with pens and pencils and charcoal, but especially with black ink pens. From about age 6 until age 15, I was absolutely sure I wanted to be a cartoonist. Not a famous cartoonist, just a cartoonist. What changed my mind? Many different things, none of which I will bore you with.
But what I hope is more interesting is what inspired me to want to draw, draw, draw. I spent so much time doing art in my room my mother would beg me to go outside and get some fresh air and sunshine, — so I would go outside with my pen and pad and draw some more!
As a child, I was inspired by the Old West sketches of cowboys, Indians (as they were called in those days) and ranch life. Europeans, as well as Americans, were fascinated with the Old West, and “Dime Westerns” were popular from about 1860 to the early 1900’s. These were pulp fiction Western stories, usually illustrated with pen and ink drawings. There were plenty still around when I was a kid, as my aunt had a collection of them. They cost ten cents a copy.
Comic strips, like Red Ryder and the Lone Ranger were very popular in newspapers, and these certainly inspired me! I would draw and re-draw scenes from them many times, especially from Red Ryder, my favorite. The only problem was the difficulty I had in drawing galloping horses. I just couldn’t draw horses, running or standing, and I still do not draw them well.
While I couldn’t draw Thunder (Red Ryder’s horse) and Papoose (Little Beaver’s pony) very well, I became pretty good at drawing everything else in the strip. Fred Charles Hartman, who drew the strip, had actually worked as a cowboy, so his cowboy scenes were pretty authentic, and it was one of the best Western strips.
During the time Texas was a Republic, 1836-1845, Europeans, like the German Verein, headquartered at Nassau Plantation near Winedale, Texas, would send artists to Texas to sketch pictures of the topography, the plant and animal life, and cowboy life. These were published in newspapers and books, and no doubt inspired a lot of cowboy sketches which were popular when I was a kid.
So, a good bit of my childhood I was preoccupied with drawing cowboys and Old West scenes, which weren’t too different from where I lived in Dime Box, Texas. In fact, the icehouse, the Post Office, and one of the beer joints in town still had hitching posts out front. I once had a photo, now lost, of my father mounted on a horse in front of his saloon.
By the time I was a pre-teen, my tastes switched from cowboy comics to Dick Tracy (a big city detective), Smiling Jack (an airplane pilot), and Wimpy (a humorous character). The switch from horses to airplanes was a good one for me, as I was quite good at drawing airplanes.
During all those many years, I never lost my desire to be a cartoonist nor my yen for drawing, even though my interest in subjects changed.
At no time in those early years was I ever exposed to famous Western artists. My exposure was to what some would call “popular culture” rather than “art,” — no doubt the reason so much of my “art” has a whimsical quality to it. I have always considered good comic strips to be good art, just as I consider splendid quilts to be splendid art.
None of this is written to suggest I am a noteworthy artist. Quite the opposite. What I have come to discover and embrace in my long lifetime is drawing brings me great pleasure, it’s delightful fun! And that’s reason enough to do it!
-o-
Ray Spitzenberger is a retired Wharton County Junior College teacher, a retired Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod pastor, and author of three books, It Must Be the Noodles, Open Prairies, and Tanka Schoen.