Joe DeYong writes : While I could always draw well enough as a kid to take the ability for granted, I had no particular idea of ever becoming an artist. In fact, handling young hosses and "follerin after cattle" were my main interests in life! And I wasn't looking for anything better. Until just before my nineteenth birthday, a definite trick of fate in the form of cerebro-menengitis, which left totally deaf turned me to painting and modeling just to kill time.

Having been an admirer of the work of Charles Russell the cowboy artist of Montana ever since I was ten years old, I wrote to him for some pointers on methods and materials in modeling. To which I received one of his now-famous, illustrated letters in reply. From then on further encouragement by his kindly interest as expressed in a second letter I was hell-bent to go to Montana, a move that eventually led to my spending ten unbelievable years in Russell's studio. Not only did I work with him, but we often rode together and sometimes camped together in the high mountains and the unfenced Indian Reservations where I got to see his country and his people through his eyes.

Of course, there was a lot about those priceless years that I in my carefree, almost kid-like, way pretty much took for granted. Until... one beautiful, fall day, when the frost had turned the aspens to yellow and gold, he simply set out on his high-lonesome and, traveling slow and steady, - as was his way rode out of sight over the skyline. Always far better mounted as he was, I'd often found it hard to stay in sight of his dust (in art and in life!) so that, even though I steadily dogged his tracks, I could never catch up with him again. And while he wasn't the sort to just ride off and leave a friend on his own, that way, I finally realized that he was crowding a deadlinewith the end of his trail timed and measured. And now that I a good eight years older than he was at that never-to-be-forgotten time find myself following a steeper and steeper trail. I sometimes look forward to what may lie ahead beyond that high pass that is said to cut a notch in those snow-capped mountains that lie straight ahead. Will the colors of the far-country be as bright? Will the range still be unfenced, and none of the old trails plowed-under? Will the same old friends gather together at night? Sometimes, I can't help but wonder!

Joe De Yong Hollywood, California July 28, 1963