“Long Live Cowboys,” that’s the message on the back of Michael McCray’s pickup truck, which also serves as his gallery on wheels. McCray is a man of few words, yet his pictures speak volumes about the depth of his love for cowboys and the Wild West.
While many of his sketches come from real life images that he photographs in his travels then draws in his studio at home, some of his other inspirations come from memory, as he grew up a cowboy in Arizona.
Cowboys might seem like unlikely artists, but sketching has long been a pastime of solitary cowboys who had little else for entertainment and wished to chronicle much of what they saw as they ran the herds. The art they created has done much to perpetuate the history and culture of the Old West.
Though he was born in Tucson, his family first moved to St. Johns and then Snowflake when he was about 9. As an adult, he went to work as a welder in the oil fields in West Texas for 14 years and then another two in Longview, Wash. He returned to Taylor, spending the next 26 years working at Reidhead Sand and Rock before retiring and finally getting to realize his dream of creating art.
“It’s something I always wanted to do, but never had the time before,” he said.
McCray’s preferred medium is pencil or colored pencil, and his framed pictures have been reproduced as greeting cards. His artwork is for sale at Stock Up in Taylor, Shevell’s Books and Frames in Snowflake, online at Etsy.com and at the area’s swap meets and bazaars. He plans to be at Greer Days and also to join the Pinetop Art Alliance. Interested parties can contact him by phone at (928) 243-2946.
