Hidden in every life is a connect-the-dots pattern: a series of life-changing events that join together over time to make that person into the person he or she is.
For Patch Peterson — wood carver, sculptor, Western artist — one of those dots came when he was a young boy on a farm in northern Utah. One Christmas, he got a Red Ryder coloring book and crayons. "I was hooked on cowboys. My dad took me to rodeos, and I would come home and cut bulls and horses out of cardboard. I grew up watching Roy Rogers and Gene Autry; they were my heroes."
And then came high school. "I started out wanting to be a painter, was doing watercolor and oils. And then I had a ceramics teacher who put a lump of clay in my hands and told me to sculpt something. That ruined my head for any kind of painting."
There was also that summer between his freshman and sophomore years in college when he worked as a fire lookout at a remote forest service station. "I'd tied eight dozen flies for fishing, I'd read most of the Old Testament. And I finally picked up a piece of wood and started whittling."
Peterson knew he had connected: Western themes and wood sculpting would be a lifelong interest.
Still, it took awhile to turn that avocation into a vocation. He majored in animal husbandry and managed a cattle ranch in McCall, Idaho, for a time, planning on becoming a cowboy. He married, and he and his wife had 11 children.
But eventually the call of his art was too strong. And in 1973 he decided to turn to it full time, to see if he could make a living doing what he loved. He never looked back.
Now, nearly 30 years later, he and his wife, Jean, live in Deweyville, in Box Elder County, and he has made a name and a place for himself as one of the state's outstanding Western artists. His work graces homes and galleries and restaurants and visitors centers. He has been recognized by Utah State University as a Master Artisan of the West. He had done huge wooden murals for the pavilion at Marble Park in Bothwell, just west of Tremonton. His most recent commission was a bronze family of coyotes, which perch on 30-ton boulders at the entrance to the USDA's Wildlife Services coyote research facility in Millville.
He has appeared at art shows and fairs all over the West and has been a regular at the Festival of the American West in Cache Valley. In fact, he has been asked by the American West Heritage Center, which sponsors the festival, to set up a permanent woodworking/demonstration shop at the center in Wellsville. "I'm building an old-fashioned workbench and a treadle lathe. And we'll use the old-style tools and methods."
It is important, he says, to keep those old ways alive. Just as it is important to keep the spirit of the Old West alive. We tend to romanticize it, to make cowboys and Indians and pioneers seem bigger than life.
But, in many ways, he says, they were bigger than life. "No other country has that history. You could shake a man's hand and tell him you'd do something, and that was as good as a 20-page document."
Peterson feels his work is successful because it is real. He's done extensive research, he says, has spent hours and hours in museums and libraries all over the country. But more importantly, he has lived his art. Sure, he's read Louis L'Amour. But he has also spent time on the range. "I picked the brains of all the old-time cowboys I met." He still keeps horses.
He spent years affiliated with a mountain-man re-enactment group, attending rendezvous that were authentic to the tiniest detail. He has danced at powwows and attended tribal gatherings with his American Indian friends.
That's where, he says, you learn the details that make a difference.
Peterson says he has always felt a special kinship, a special affinity for the Plains Indians. "When I sculpt these people, it's almost as if a special presence is there, guiding my hands. I don't understand it, but it's there. I feel like I've been chosen to tell their stories in sculpture, the way my friend Don Coldsmith tells their stories in words." And his Indian friends have complimented him on his authenticity.
Peterson lost an eye in a shop accident in 1970; that's when he began wearing the black eye patch that gave him his nickname. And after being called Patch for so long, he finally had his name legally changed.
The loss of the eye affects his depth perception, which he says means that he might not be as fast at three-dimensional works as some artists, but it hasn't affected his artistic sense.
And although he worked mostly with wood in the early years, he now feels equally at home with clay. "Ed Fraughton took me aside one day and taught me more in a couple of hours than I learned in all my classes in school."
No matter that the two processes are essentially opposites: wood-carving involves taking off; bronze sculpture is a method of adding on. Peterson works as well on either side.
When it comes to wood, he works mostly with pine and cedar, although he also likes redwood, has worked with poplar and considers black walnut to be "the king of woods. For pure beauty, it's hard to beat."
Wood can be tricky, he says. Unlike clay, which is forgiving and can be remolded to suit, once you chip out a piece of wood, you can't put it back.
You learn to look at the wood deeply, he says, to see what is hiding in it. "Not every piece of wood is hiding art," he says. "Some of it is just firewood."
But when you learn to see the hidden patterns, learn to bring them out and create works of art, it is very satisfying, he says.
As satisfying as connecting the right dots over a lifetime to create the pattern for a happy life.
E-MAIL: carma@desnews.com