Thoughts about Stanton

In my show that's up now at the Open Shutter Gallery, I have an image that's titled 'Homage to Stanton'. Stanton is Stanton Englehart, who we lost this year, and who was, as anyone who's been in Durango for anytime knows, an amazing artist and an even more amazing human being.

Stanton grew up in the Four Corners, north of Cortez, married a local girl (Pat), got his education at the University of Colorado, made a career as an Art Professor at Fort Lewis College, raised a family, fished a lot, rode his bike a lot, played a lot of basketball, touched a lot of lives (I mean a lot of lives), and along the way painted a staggering number of the most incredible paintings. As someone who also grew up in the Four Corners, I have to say that I've never seen one of Stanton's landscapes of the deserts and mountains of the Southwest that I didn't look at and immediately feel like I was looking at the space in my soul that is home. And beyond the beauty of the landscapes was a wealth of symbolism reflecting the depth of the man. To me Stanton was a fiercely gentle man, or maybe a better way to say that, might be that he was a very strong, gentle man who had a quiet ferociousness about life and art.

In titling a piece "Homage to Stanton" I know I run the risk of people thinking that I'm comparing myself to him. Hopefully those who know me well enough would know that I would not be so bold. If any of my images even show a hint of the beauty and depth of a Stanton Englehart painting, then I'm a happy guy. I named that particular piece what I did, because as I was shooting it I was reminded of Stanton because the scene is, in fact, very Stantonesque... he, however, would have done much more justice to it.

Stanton lived up the street from me, and several years ago I happened to notice a small classified in the paper saying that he was going to have an art sale out of his garage the following day. I made a note to go check it out, just so I could look at his paintings (figuring they would be way out of my price range). Well, the following day, I, of course, forgot about the sale (because: 'I am... therefore I forget') until I looked up the street and saw all the cars at Stanton and Pat's house. I walked up the the street and found to my utter amazement that he was selling paintings for $100 a piece matted and framed. At the time, I really didn't have any extra money to be buying paintings, that I have no wall space for anyway, but I bought eight... how could I not?

An amazing little vignette from that day involved this woman who was obviously new to town and happened to drive by and stop her very fancy, spanky clean SUV to check out the 'garage sale'. She found a painting she liked well enough, bought it, and was off. About fifteen minutes later she was back with the explanation the it just didn't fit her wall color and started looking around for something that might better match her scheme (having no clue that if she had any sense at all, she would repaint her wall, or her whole damn house, to match the painting). As she continued her fools errand she was chatting with Stanton as if he was some guy who puttered around with paints on the weekends: "How long have you been painting?", "Have you ever put them in shows?", "Have you ever had them in a gallery?", "What do you do for a living?", "Oh, and what do you teach?"... and the whole time Stanton was just being so pleasant and nice... while I, on the other hand, wanted to go over and shake her till her eyeballs fell out, or maybe until I shook some sense into her or some money out of her, because clearly she had more money than sense. But Stanton just took it all in stride. Stanton was a rare man. A man possessed of exceptional skills and depth of being. I don't think he had a prima donna bone in his body, and that's how he could put up with that woman. And that's how he touched so many of our lives.

I'm going to include some samples of Stanton's work below (and my homage to Stanton) and if you want to see more, there is an exhibit of his work at the Anazazi Heritage Center, titled 'Horizons' through March 27th, 2010. Also, there is a wonderful book about Stanton and his art titled Stanton Englehart: A Life On Canvas Published and written by Jules Masterjohn. It is available at stantonenglehartbook.com, Maria's bookshop in Durango, the Anazai Heritage Center, and I'm sure many other outlets.

"Homage to Stanton Englehart" by Gunnar Conrad