GARY LYNN ROBERTS 1953 - 0000 Gary Lynn Roberts recalls, “Once someone asked my father, ‘How long has Gary Lynn been in painting?’ And he said, ‘I don’t know how long he’s been painting, but I used to wipe my brush on his diaper when he crawled by.’ That’s how long I’ve been around painting. It’s all I ever wanted to do.”
back. Roberts likes to paint scenes from the late nineteenth century in a style that is a mixture of Realism and Impressionism. His paintings depict cattle drives, Indian encampments, and cowboys. “When I was a kid, I loved the history of America. I happen to think the people who settled the West were some of the strongest, bravest people ever,” says Roberts. “I’ll paint a snow scene, and people will say, ‘Oh, it would be so nice to live back then.’ And I’m going, ‘I like my thermostat!’ To live off the land, you had to be strong people. I try to depict that in my paintings: the strength of these people who could survive in this and make a country out of it — they built America.” His experience training horses and participating in rodeos as a young man inform his paintings, which he works hard to make historically correct. However, he says, “I want to do more than create a historically correct scene; I want to tell a story. When someone views one of my paintings, I want them to feel like they are part of the painting. I love God. I love my family. I love this country, and that’s what I try to depict in my paintings.”
The son of Western artist Joe Rader Roberts, Gary Lynn Roberts grew up in the small town of Channelview, just east of Houston, Texas. “For as long as I can remember, all I ever wanted to do was be a painter,” Roberts says. “My dad had been bitten by the same bug in his youth, but in the 1950s and ‘60s, you couldn’t make enough money to support a family as a fine artist, so he built a sign painting business while establishing his reputation as a Western painter. I kind of got my start the same way. By the time I was 14 years old, I was helping dad out by painting signs on grocery store windows, listing the special for the week and, during the holiday season, my assignments might include Santa Clauses or Easter Bunnies. This was all hand work, lettering, and even figures done with a brush, so sign painting was actually very good training. I was fortunate to grow up in that atmosphere” he says. “In addition to my father, I received one on one training from many of his friends such as G. Harvey and A.D. Greer to mention only a couple.”
Today, Roberts works from his studio in the Bitterroot Valley, where he and his family have lived since the late 1990’s. For Roberts, painting is a labor of love. He leaves his house every morning, six days a week, except Sundays, to work in his studio, returning home in the evening at about 7:00 p.m. each day. There are easier ways to make a living,” says Roberts. “My faith is everything, and I believe that faith is what allows me to be who I am and to paint the way I do. This has to be a labor of love, or you will have a long, tough life.”
Gary Lynn won his first art award when he was just 14 for a piece he entered at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo and shortly thereafter he began selling his Western art at regional art and craft shows. From then on, he has never looked
184
