Like the cry of the red-tailed hawk …like the smell of sagebrush at dawn … or an evening's painted sky, Wayne Justus is part of a higher order of things.

Wayne has attained an inner calm, almost like a Buddhist monk in Western gear -- a living antithesis to this high-tech age.  Justus is an artist.  You can see it in his work and sense it in his presence.

Justus has won numerous awards throughout the country since making his art a full-time occupation in 1972.  Along with a number of gold medals from the American Indian & Cowboy Artists, he claimed their Artist's Artist, Western Heritage and Festival Choice awards.  He was also awarded a silver medal at a National Western Artist Show in Lubbock, TX.

Wayne has participated in the Prix de West Invitational Art Exhibition at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum, the Cheyenne Frontier Days Western Art Show, the Settlers West Galleries American Miniatures Exhibition, the Masters of the American West Exhibition at the Gene Autry Museum of Western Heritage, and he was the featured artist in the San Luis Obispo County Cattlemen's Association 12th Annual Cattlemen's Western Art Show. 

Wayne's work has been featured on several covers of the New Mexico Stockman magazine, as well as in Colorado Stockman, Horse and Rider, and Western Horseman (with a cover in 1990).  His paintings have been published in Southwest Art magazine, as well as in one of their calendars, and he  was also profiled in the January/February 2003 issue of Art of the West.

As a child, while other kids were throwing rocks and cans and climbing trees, Justus had pencil in hand sketching scenes from the world that surrounded him.  Part of that childhood was spent living on WLH Farms Thoroughbred Ranch, which kindled his love of horses.

His talent was recognized by the artist Sebastian Capella early on.  This internationally known artist was fresh from Spain and still a novice with the English language when, through an interpreter, Capella taught Justus charcoal drawing to explore the values of light and shadow.

Through books, artist Ron Scofield introduced Wayne to such famous artists as Charlie Russell and Frederick Remington.  With Wayne's love of horses and this introduction to the cowboy, it was natural that he focus his talent in this direction.

After entering high school, Justus studied under the western artist, Auston Deuel.  Through Deuel, the young man met many other artists, which further taught him and kindled his yearning to be a professional artist.

While still in high school, the budding artist took a job at Fairbrook Farms, a thoroughbred ranch, breaking and training their horses for the race track.  He took the job to be around horses, studying their differences and constantly absorbing more about their variations in musculature and movement.

Shortly after high school, Justus married Cathy King.  They met in seventh grade and were married in 1972.  Not a fly-by-night romance.  In 1978, the Justus' moved to property they bought in Pagosa Springs, Colorado.  There they built a rock and log horse barn, where they lived with their horses and dogs for over seven years before building their home.  Most of their days are spent in relative tranquility with their stock dogs and show quality Quarter Horses.

Wayne's studio is made of hand-hewn Aspen logs chinked in between and dove-tailed at the ends, with hardwood floors and a parlor stove in the middle.  Up to 12 hours a day are spent there holed up painting by Justus.  "Most people imagine an artist sits around waiting until the mood strikes him -- then he paints.  But if you're painting for a living, you're always in the mood."  Justus says, "It's a discipline."

Although, to gather subject matter for his paintings, Wayne periodically travels to Arizona, New Mexico and Texas to work as a cowpuncher on several big spreads.  He does this for the opportunity to gain what is needed for his paintings -- Authenticity!

And Justus does what he is:  cowboy.  To meet Justus is to meet a man you'd like to call a friend for life.  He has a soft-spoken assurance of the genuine article.  As the old John Wayne saying goes, he's the kind of man you wouldn't mind sharing a winter cabin with.

Slight in build, with the rangy look of a good jockey, Justus moves with the easy-going deliberation of a man who has time.  He speaks in the slow drawl of the Western man, like a common-sense philosopher in a cowboy hat.

"I feel that if you're going to paint boats, you ought to be a sailor, or at least know a lot about sailing," Justus said.  "Same goes with cowboy artists."

"People don't realize that the American cowboy still exists pretty much like he did a hundred years ago.  There are several big outfits that run wagons, remuda their horses, and cowboys don't see town for months at a time."  Justus is concerned that with the seemingly inevitable passing on of the cowboy way of life, it won't be long before most of the big ranches are subdivided and sold.  But working cowboys are a proud group, tenaciously defending their fading way of life.  And they've got a friend in Wayne Justus, who dedicates his art to creating a historically accurate, as well as aesthetically pleasing record of the unusual and American breed of working cowboy.

(Content taken in part from articles written by Gordon Johnson and Crista Seiler.)

P.S. - A part of Wayne Justus that not many know is his love of Civil War history, which, from time to time, he has painted with the same focus on authenticity that he has dedicated to his western paintings.

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