Artist Bio - Dick Mueller (Coyote Crossing Studio)

Dick Mueller

“My heroes have always been cowboys…….”

Growing up with Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, and Hopalong laid the foundation for Dick’s love for and curiosity about the dress, faces, and activities of the west of the late 1800s and early 1900s.  Dick says, “Using photographs (old and new) for inspiration, I try to paint a feeling and/or action with pencils – either graphite or colored, not brushes.  Besides western characters I also incorporate desert wildlife into my drawings.  I have ready subjects to photograph outside my studio door located in Cave Creek on a hill overlooking Grapevine Wash.  Working in a very representational style, my intent is to give the viewer a sense of nostalgia, curiosity, humor, peaceful reflection and inspiration.”

Dick had no art classes until he attended college at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, majoring in Industrial Design and minoring in sculpture.  After spending five years with McDonnell Douglas as a technical illustrator, he settled into a life in sales of electrical products and abandoned serious art for nearly 20 years.  In about 1991 he started painting (in acrylics) until a client said she thought he should try working in pencil because of the detail he put in his paintings.  “After only a couple of pieces, I was hooked”, Dick says.