ARTIST SPOTLIGHT-JOEL OSTLIND

JOEL OSTLIND ARTIST SPOTLIGHT

Before becoming an artist, Joel Ostlind was a working cowboy, so it seems to reason that his subject matter revolves around cowboys, horses and cattle, wildlife and the beautiful outdoors. Born and raised in Casper, Wyoming, he attended Casper College and took classes in watercolor and basic design before earning degrees in soil science and ranch management. As a single young man, he left Wyoming to cowboy.

He worked full time on big ranches, using his education in ranching. Joel recalls one Christmas, while working on a ranch in the Texas Panhandle, his parents sent him a box, “it contained a wool sweater, a tiny Christmas tree with electric lights and a brand-new sketch book.” From that day forward, he set a goal to complete at least a page of sketches a day. “That first sketchbook wound up full of drawings of things that had happened during those days. I knew that I had a long way to go with the art, but I kept at it,” he said.

Ostlind recalls an incident that was instrumental in his pursuing art. In the 1980’s he was living in a cow camp in Montana where the advertising firm, Leo Burnett, liked to photograph Marlboro advertisements. The bunkhouse was the gathering place for all of the Marlboro cowboys and advertising firm crew. He showed some of his watercolors to the art director and a photographer. “They were professionals and said that I had something going. That was the nudge that got me rolling,” Ostlind recalls. When his children

reached school age, they moved close enough to town to be on a school bus route and he began a part time ranch job. In the morning he would feed cattle using a team of horses and every afternoon he began to seriously work through the art instruction books in the Sheridan County Library. “By moving that ranch work ethic into art, for me every drawing, painting or etching was like a calf born that needed to be tended and added to the bunch,” he explains. CHANGING PASTURES Jake, moved to their current home in Big Horn in the 1990’s. Joel built his 12-by24 foot studio with his own two hands in the winter of 1990-1991. “I hand-dug the foundation,” Ostlind says, “ and traded with different people around the area, including hay off this piece of land for some lumber. The trusses for the lofted ceiling are from trees I cut down that were killed by pine bark beetles on the Padlock Ranch. And my father would come down from Montana and help me.” About a decade and a half later, he added onto his studio. His son Jake, assisted him in constructing the structure out

of dried straw bales 18 inches thick, secured by chicken wire and sealed with stucco.

Wendy is his most important partner and greatest influence. She has supported him both literally and figuratively through building his studio and his artwork. “She has an honest eye for art and enjoys matting and framing my work. That doesn’t slip by unappreciated,” he adds.

If you are watching polo this summer at the Flying H, you will probably see Joel around. For several years he has provided coveted drawings for the Bradford Brinton Memorial Cup. He enjoys using polo as subject matter. He says, “I enjoy the gestural aspects of drawing how polo players and ponies work together in ways never to be seen on a cattle ranch. Art wise – polo is a visual feast, but it’s pretty hard to get it right. When a piece of polo art comes out well it is pretty rewarding.”

Joel Ostlind’s artwork is a reflection of the Wyoming he loves, and we are all blessed to have the opportunity to have such a talented artist call Big Horn, Wyoming his home.

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