Cheatgrass Dreams
by Theodore Waddell
illustrations by Theodore Waddell
published by Waddell Fine Art
produced by Sweetgrass Books
Theodore Waddell writes of his wild reverence for the land and the fellow beings with whom he shares Her as if he's slapping oils onto colossal canvases unafraid to lay it on thick and gritty, and you bet, poetically musical and sentimental.
-Paul Zarzyski
The West has a storytelling history, and everyone has a story. This is artist Theodore Waddell's an illustrated mosey through the landscape, livestock, and colorful characters that made up his life as a cattleman in a remote part of Central Montana. The essays that compose this memoir have much in common with his art. They are frank, evocative sketches that deftly combine the abstract and the literal to effectively communicate the persistent struggle and beauty of ranch life.Each essay is accompanied by a painting and line drawings. Though these illustrations share DNA with the super-sized abstract impressionist paintings for which Waddell is known, they are more narrative in nature. The words and pictures found in Cheatgrass Dreams are an authentic distillation of life in the West's rural and remote corners: unflinchingly heartfelt, surprisingly wry, and brutally honest.
104 pages, 11.75 x 9, Softcover: Sewn with French Flaps, Hardcover: Sewn with Dustjacket
softcover
ISBN 10: 0984056033
ISBN 13: 9780984056033
$19.95
hardcover
ISBN 10: 0984056041
ISBN 13: 9780984056040
$29.95
RELEASE DATE
01/07/2020
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Born in Billings, Montana in 1941, Theodore Waddell studied art at the Brooklyn Museum Art School in New York in 1962-63 and received a bachelor’s degree from Eastern Montana College in 1966. In 1968 he received a Master of Fine Arts Degree in Sculpture and Printmaking from Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. In 1968, Waddell joined the University of Montana's Art Faculty and retired from teaching in 1976. Soon after, he began working in Montana as a rancher and artist, and his current work reflects the influences of these two professions. His art career took off in 1983 when he was invited to exhibit his work in the prestigious Corcoran Biennial 38th Survey of American Art. In 2004 he was honored at the White House for his work with the U.S. State department’s Art in Embassies program which exhibits his work in various U.S. Embassies around the world.
Waddell’s abstract impressionistic rendering of real subject matter reflects the American experience of living in the West and his love of the land. His work is found in private and corporate collections throughout the world and is currently exhibited in galleries and museums throughout the western United States. He is a past recipient of the state of Montana’s Governor’s Arts Award, and in 2015 he received Artist of the Year honors from the Yellowstone Art Museum. In 2017 a major retrospective celebrating his career, Theodore Waddell: My Montana was published by Riverbend Publishing.
Today, Waddell and his wife Lynn Campion divide their time between homes in Sheridan, Montana and Hailey, Idaho, and Mr. Waddell continues to paint most every day. In his spare time, he creates beautifully illustrated books featuring his beloved Bernese Mountain dogs, his passion for the game of golf and tales of his Montana childhood and ranching years.
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