Cowboy Wages

    Cowboy Wages

        By

             Mike Capron

Not easy to support your passions on cowboy wages.  The old “cowboss” said , “Every thing you need kid is right here on this ranch”.  It doesn’t take long to crave something we don’t need, but sure want real bad on our meager wage.

 The wages you earn won’t take long to spend, once you leave the ranch. Married life  and town is not easy while you are working on cowboy wages. Wife’s get jobs and help out for sure, but children and family needs add to the difficulties .  

Cowboys learn to survive. Cowboys are hard headed and don’t like to give up their cowboy lifestyle. Riding jobs are mostly in the spring and fall.  It is hard to take a town job like sacking groceries or pumping gas after you have experienced the freedom and excitement of riding and roping. 

 Lots of cowboys in the west and northwest wanted to ride with Louis Ortega rawhide bosal, reins and romal.  But Mr. Ortega took his art to a level where price was a big factor. The time he spent on his rawhide art made it an expensive piece of art for a cowboy.  Mr. Ortega had to take his art to the  big horse shows in California in order to find buyers. Cowboys loved his work but couldn’t afford it. This is a consideration when you start producing  Cowboy Art. Cowboys may love it, but can’t afford it.  But if the cowboys don’t love it, then the art buyers won’t love it enough to buy it.  Cowboys are the art critics for cowboy art.  They can tell you when the details of color, drawing proportions, and action anatomy are correct. Some say you need to punch cows a bunch before you start drawing and painting cowboy art.  Photos are a great reference but they can’t tell the whole story. This is where a cowboy can’t draw or paint but he can sure tell you if your cowboy painting is correct or not.  This is where Charlie Russell had such a great advantage in that he was basically raised on the range during a time he loved to paint. He could remember the correct temperature of the light he was painting. It gave his characters and landscapes the right feeling for the location and time of day and month. He knew and was around the characters he painted.  Plus he loved to tell a story and was a good storyteller with or without his paint and clay.

I knew a good cowboy and good cowboy artist who worked hard at his cowboying and producing cowboy art. He was a saddle maker, leather goods for cowboys and other necessary repairs on cowboy gear. He made his gear stout, simple, and plain, no fancy. He kept the price down and learned every angle how to produce, peddle and perpetuate his life style.  He was a master at the clock and cutting corners. When the boss told him to go to the wagon for lunch when we were on a hold up, he would hit a high trot to the wagon get down and hobble his horse all the time planning how he was going to get a plate and fill it. After he got is plate filled and picked a spot to squat down and eat, he pulled his hat off and grabbed a plastic spoon out of his hat band and was through eating before most could get their plate filled. He didn’t need to scrape his plate as he had taken what he needed for grub and his plate was clean. He just pitched it in the round-up pan and got his horse headed to the round-up.  I was still blowing on my coffee trying to get it cool enough to drink…….!!!!!!!