We were lucky to catch up with James Hatzell recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi James, thanks for joining us today. Are you happier as a creative? Do you sometimes think about what it would be like to just have a regular job? Can you talk to us about how you think through these emotions?

Right after I finished all my classes at the American Academy of Art in the Spring of 1976, I looked for a job to make some money after having none the last 3 years. I found work laying track for the Illinois Central Railroad on the south side of Chicago. I was there April through September. After that I headed to eastern Colorado to work on my uncle’s cattle ranch. I worked all day, every day as a cowboy & ranch hand. At night I sketched and painted. I tried to absorb as much of the experience as I could. That’s how Charlie Russell got started in Montana a century earlier. It didn’t hit me at the time, but I think an artist needs to have life experience in order to tell proper stories with your talent.

Through the next several years I had many different jobs where I made money full time but used my free time to work on artwork. I worked for the railroad again, first the Santa Fe and then the Chicago & Northwestern Railway both times in the “operating department meaning I rode on the trains and went all over the city of Chicago and sometimes to Iowa. Along the way I had an agent who would get me freelance work on the side. One thing about the railroad is I spent a lot of time in my studio waiting for the phone to ring with my next call.

In 1978 I went to Europe for a visit and ended up staying almost 2 years. I got a job on an Army Base in Heidelberg, Germany and ended up working on the base. I was doing lots of artwork there as well and even had my first official art show there. There was a lot of opportunity to freelance especially with my caricatures. I would also take off and see the sites of Europe, traveling from the Islands of Greece through the great northern terrain of Lapland.

In 1980 I joined the USAF and was stationed at Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota working on the autopilot & compass systems of the B-52’s and tanker aircraft for the Strategic Air Command. It didn’t take me long to get back to freelance artwork again plus the squadron Commander knew about me and I would regularly get tagged to do special projects for the Colonel and the base newspaper. On January 1st, 1980 I began to sketch regularly every day in my sketchbook which I took everywhere. One of my instructors at the American Academy of Art, Bill Parks, suggested we do this. When my time came to muster out of the service, I had my regular visit with the recruiter asking me to stay. When I turned him down, I was called into the Colonel’s office once more and he asked me to reconsider. He told me if I re-enlisted he would do everything in his power to get me in the Air Force art program. I had my brakeman job still waiting for me back in Chicago and turned him down. To this day I regret not thinking it through a bit more.

After 2 years back in Chicago I really began to tire of the big city. I liked working for the railroad and freelancing on the side, but longed to return to the high plains of western South Dakota. I had a pretty good grubstake put away for the move and in January 1987 I was back in Rapid City. I advertised as freelance artist in the local area and was soon working enough to live on. I had an eclectic assortment of projects which used both my Advertising & Design skills and also Illustration projects. I would often do gesture drawing portraits near Mount Rushmore. After sketching every day, I was getting pretty good. In 1989 I got a job riding horses on the Academy Award winning movie “Dances with Wolves”. I made more money sketching the extras, cast & crew than I did for the job I was hired to do. I sketched every day on set and the results ended up illustrating a book called “Dakota Epic” which was a memoir written by Bill Markley. We would go on to do 5 more books together.

I kept getting calls to come do more movies through the decade of the ’90’s, Mostly, in westerns riding horses. I also got a call in 1990 to be a reenactor coordinator and help with props & wardrobe for a British Documentary. I worked on “Far and Away”, Thunderheart, “TNT’s Gettysburg”, “For Love and Glory”, “Geronimo: An American Legend”, “Wyatt Earp”, “The Never Ending Story part 3”, “Return to Lonesome Dove”, “Heaven and Hell”, TNT’s “Lakota Woman”, “Buffalo Girls”, TNT’s “Crazy Horse”, “Two For Texas”, TNT’s “Buffalo Soldiers”, TNT’s “Rough Riders”, “Ride With the Devil”, “Hidalgo”, “Skins”, and I’m leaving out all of the documentaries and smaller shows I worked on. I helped with more than horses. I was doing lots of production work as well plus artwork in the time I spent at home. Working these jobs also benefitted my artwork.

In September 1987 I went to the Artist Ride which was put on by Dan Deuter & the Shearer Family which was a seminar for gathering photographic material to paint from. Artists since the invention of the camera have used pictures to help with illustration (even Charlie Russell, Frederic Remington, and Norman Rockwell.) Subject matter was cowboys and Indians on horseback, stagecoaches, all kinds of different wagons, longhorn cows, horse remudas and of course, US Cavalry, which I invited to come from my movie work. Through the years, Dan invited me to contribute more and more; especially after he moved from South Dakota to Colorado. By 1996, he was getting pretty burned out with running the photo shoot and he asked me to take over as director of the Artist Ride. I took over in 1997 and tried my best to run it the same way as Dan did.

From the early days of 1987, when there was a total of six artists, through the early 1990’s when it climbed to 25 or so artists, we had our hands full. When we started getting some of the very top illustrators in the Western Art business, the word got out that the Artist Ride was the place to go for quality material. It got to where I would accept 50 artists, and after that I’d start a waiting list. One of the artists who came, was the editor of Mad Magazine, Al Feldstein. I believe it was in 1998, that he asked me if the caricature that I drew on the Artist Ride Invitation envelope was drawn by me. He asked me how fast I could draw them, so I took my sketchbook and drew a face while he watched. He bowled me over when he asked me if I’d be interested in working for Mad Magazine! When I was in art school, this would have been my “dream job” and I told him so. He said, “I think you’d fit in nicely because many who started in the beginning, were retiring or dying”. At this time, the magazine was still putting out ten issues a year in classic black and white format without any advertising. He told me that, of course, I’d have to move to New York to take the job…. which brought me back to reality. We had horses, dogs and cats and my wife had a career working for a cardiologist. We owned a big house with a full basement, ten-foot-high ceilings and oak trim, and we’d have to give all of that up to live in a two small room apartment if we were lucky. And I still had the movie career which was still going strong. It was with much regret that I had to turn the job down.

In 2013, I started having western photo shoots on my own. First in Kansas at a friend’s ranch and then 5 years later, back in South Dakota. I call it Fiddlers Green Productions and we have had it at several different locations, to give the artists a nice variety of backgrounds. I’m still doing freelance artwork and continue to work in the movie business. Mostly doing locations work, production jobs such as costumer, props and I’ve even worked as an armorer. I also spent two years working as a park ranger at the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Park.

When I was asked if I regret not having regular jobs instead of working as an artist, I’d have to say that I’ve had many different jobs, which have all contributed to the success I’ve had as an artist.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

I believe that society should treat the teaching of art in school more seriously. Even if a student has no desire to be an artist, a musician or an actor; having a background in the appreciation of art, would help everyone appreciate music, plays, movies and paintings much more; creating a richer life experience. In the olden days, when art was readily taught in schools, the architects would have so much more ornamentation than the “boxes” being built today.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

I learned early on that being an artist is not a competition with all of the other artists. When we work together and support one another, we all win.

I noticed that when all of the creative people get together at one of my Western Art Photo Shoots, magical things happen. Whatever makes an artist an artist, gets ignited or re-ignited and comes to life as other people take the same models and go in whatever direction that they want, and everyone comes out with something of their own – it’s part of the reason I’ve continued the photos shoots for all of these years.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.artistride.com
• Facebook: Jim Hatzell
• Other: If you want a plethora of interesting articles just google Jim Hatzell Flicker.com under fiddlersgreenstudio

Image Credits
Not applicable