Easels & Pochade Boxes

I was managing a big cattle ranch in Colorado when I came across Winston Churchill's essay "Painting as a Pastime," in which he prescribes painting as therapy for stress and overwork - sounded good to me.

No sooner had I taken up my newfound pastime than it dawned on me that the last thing I wanted was to have one of my cowboys catch me in the act. Fortunately, I came across a little book that had some illustrations of a small portable painting rig called a pochade box. So I made one small enough to hide under my pickup seat. It was as cute as a bug's ear and worked great - none of the ranch hands ever found out my secret. I had spent years outdoors as a rancher, but painting made me realize that I had not really been "seeing" my surroundings.

Some years later when I was doing volunteer work in Bolivia, I had been sneaking around with my pochade boxes, capturing the unsuspecting world around me. It was only a matter of time before I began thinking of myself as a Guerrilla Painter. One thing led to another, and before I knew it, my son, Arthur, and I had started making our pochade boxes for other people...