{"id":11967,"date":"2017-03-14T08:44:59","date_gmt":"2017-03-14T14:44:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/windriver.org\/?p=11967"},"modified":"2026-03-31T17:09:01","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T23:09:01","slug":"the-many-lifetimes-of-lucas-wild-wyoming-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/windriver.org\/de\/blog\/the-many-lifetimes-of-lucas-wild-wyoming-art\/","title":{"rendered":"Die vielen Leben von Lucas' wilder Wyoming-Kunst"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Casey Adams
\nEvery piece of Tom Lucas\u2019 artwork has lived several lifetimes.<\/p>\n

A piece\u2019s first life is that lived by Tom, by his friends and family, conjured up from the well of rich stories he has compiled over decades of life on Wyoming and Montana ranches, the Wind River Indian Reservation, and in Dubois.<\/p>\n

\"A\u201cMy whole life has revolved around Native American and cowboy culture and ranching and hunting \u2026 I\u2019ve been cold and hungry and wet and half froze to death, and those things come out when you\u2019re doing your artwork,\u201d Tom said. \u201cTo me it is so important that you reach back down into yourself and pull out all those feelings, those experiences.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whether it\u2019s a bear sculpted from stone, a beaded moccasin, a Native American-style war bonnet, flint knapping, or one of the bighorn sheep bows for which he is famous, Tom has a personal backstory behind each item.<\/p>\n

A piece\u2019s second life is taking and holding physical form.<\/p>\n

For example, in his late 20s, Tom\u2019s interest was piqued by a literary depiction of bows that the Mountain Shoshone or Sheep Eaters of Wind River Country once used, crafted from the horns the area\u2019s bighorn sheep had shed. After searching the library and seeking out guidance on the process, Tom was left without answers. As he tells Susan Carse Norris in her biography \u201cTom Lucas: Western Artist,\u201d Tom\u2019s interest in the bows\u2014and the process of creating them\u2014didn\u2019t waver.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe ultimate challenge is to make one,\u201d he decided, according to the biography. Knowing only that that sheds were soaked in hot water for a day or two before being manipulated into a bow shape, he began his work.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s kind of hard to explain,\u201d Tom told us, \u201cbut for me I have to be able to see [a piece of art or craftword] in my head. I have to be able to visualize it really explicitly.\u201d And when he does, he can bring the picture to life in three to a dozen attempts, he estimates.<\/p>\n

And in this case, through trial and error, experience as an artist and craftsman, and a bit of intuition, he brought history to life on the first horn. That initial bow has lived a celebrated life, even circling back to visit Tom in his shop 40 years later.<\/p>\n

In the subsequent decades since that first bow was brought to life, Tom has completed another 40 bows and been routinely recognized for his rescue of this nearly lost art.<\/p>\n

This cowboy artist has continued to hone his skills and develop new artistries. In fact, at the time of this interview, Tom was working hard on another demanding undertaking: a little jewelry box inlayed with pieces of sheep horn\u2014scraps from earlier creations. Fittingly, his intended future for this carpentry piece was donating it to the National Bighorn Sheep Interpretive Center in Dubois for a fundraiser.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe sheep horn box is probably one of the most challenging I have ever taken on,\u201d Tom noted. \u201cI\u2019d actually like, when I get this one totally completed, to try that one again and see what I can come up with.\u201d<\/p>\n

On top of that, he\u2019s identified a \u201cdown-the-road project\u201d in carving a buffalo out of stone.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not a sculptor, per se, but when I get in the mood to do something \u2026 I do like to take on a new challenge,\u201d Tom explained, a trait that becomes apparent as he describes his many endeavors, artistic and otherwise.<\/p>\n

Buffalo are a favorite subject for Tom, and through personal and artistic experience, he has developed a strong, familiar understanding of the creatures, to which he can add an emotional component.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I can pull it off and make it look like I see it in my mind, that would be pretty exciting,\u201d Tom said of his eventual miniature buffalo sculpture.<\/p>\n

A piece\u2019s third life is often in the form of a painting by Tom\u2019s hand.<\/p>\n

\"An\u201cI do make a lot of my props and at various times they end up in my paintings, usually several times,\u201d Tom said.<\/p>\n

Take, for example that next challenge Tom is already mulling.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I can make that little buffalo carving the way I want it, it\u2019s quite likely it will end up in my paintings at least once.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just as Tom\u2019s physical pieces are grounded in reality, in emotion and a sense of place, so, too, do his paintings. They hold a share of the life Tom has lived in Wind River Country.<\/p>\n

\"\"\u201cWhen I set up a still-life, I\u2019m trying to go back in that particular time period and I\u2019m thinking about all the implications and all the things that are resonating from whatever I\u2019m trying to say. You create from the heart.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tom has lived in Wyoming\u2019s Wind River Country\/Fremont County since the late 1950s, and the diversity of scenery continues to be a key element of his inspiration. An eloquent, composed man, Tom begins to ramble a bit when describing what he loves about his home.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis area has a lot of diversity, i.e. the mountains, the desert, the badlands, you just have all kinds of beautiful scenery\u2014inspirational scenery. And of course the people\u2014I like the small-town atmosphere, and I\u2019ve always liked the lifestyle that I\u2019ve lived which is, of course, ranching and training horses and working stock \u2026 I carpenter, then there\u2019s my artwork,\u201d Tom explained, concluding beautifully:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe area in general just provides a lot of inspiration for all of these venues that I work on. There\u2019s a great deal of living here in my artwork.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is, indeed, a great deal of living in Tom\u2019s artwork. Perhaps in one of these piece\u2019s fourth lifetime, it will be visited by you in his shop in Dubois while you\u2019re in Wind River Country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jedes Kunstwerk von Tom Lucas hat mehrere Leben gelebt.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":12081,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"community":[],"season":[],"class_list":["post-11967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/windriver.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/windriver.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/windriver.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/windriver.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/windriver.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11967"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/windriver.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11967\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/windriver.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/windriver.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/windriver.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/windriver.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11967"},{"taxonomy":"community","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/windriver.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/community?post=11967"},{"taxonomy":"season","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/windriver.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/season?post=11967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}