There Goes My Cowboy by S.C. Mummert, oil on canvas 36 x 48 inches.
THE ARTIST
S.C. Mummert
GROWING UP WITH HORSES
“I was born in San Diego, in a suburb in the East County by the name of La Mesa. When I grew up here, the culture was far more Western than it is today. We had horses in our backyard. We’d go camping up in the mountains and go trail riding, and that was just a huge part of my life growing up.”
A NOSTALGIC VISION
“I reach back in time a little bit, and I suppose there’s an element of nostalgia within my work that I really enjoy. The 1930s, 40s and 50s is the era that I tend to paint. I would say, generally, that what most people do is we romanticize the past, and I’m okay with that.”
EAST MEETS WEST
“During the Great Depression the ranchers were struggling, so they put out the word that wealthy Easterners were welcome to come out and get a taste of the West and bring their families, so that was the birthing of dude ranches. They’d meet these cowboys of the day—they were all rawhide and barbed wire—and some girls met these guys, fell in love and never left. They actually carved out a new life for themselves in places like Colorado, Montana and Wyoming. You can research that, and kind of put a scene together, and just imagine how that could have unfolded.”
SUNSHINE AND OPTIMISM
“Sunlight in my work is a very, very strong element. It feels like there’s so much gravity trying to pull us down that I try to reverse that. I’m trying to bring optimism or some levity and lightness into people’s lives with my art to connect with them.”
NEXT
Mummert is planning a new series of retro snow skiing paintings.
sorrelsky.com, scmummert.com
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Article from Mountainliving.com
