Fort Worth Star-Telegram (Texas)<\/p>\n
Pride and a new vision bring a seasoned artist back to his original creation on a butcher shop wall.<\/p>\n
BYLINE: Dawn Shurmaitis, Special to the Star-Telegram<\/p>\n
The Michelangelo of Mansfield Highway is at it again.
\nHe squints one brown eye. Sticks out one flat thumb.<\/p>\n
Frowns.<\/p>\n
“I’ve got to highlight the clouds more. Shadow in over here,” said
\nartist Pete Foster about the Arizona scene he is creating on the
\nconcrete side of The Butcher Shop.<\/p>\n
Painting sure and fast, Foster fills in rough charcoal outlines of
\nyucca, cactus, cows and cowboys with just-mixed splashes of brilliant
\nred, lush green and warm yellow.<\/p>\n
“I just buy five colors, and I can make anything I want to,” he
\nsaid, gesturing to ever-blooming cactus and lifelike prickly pears.<\/p>\n
Foster has labored over the mural for two months, working from a
\nshopping cart crowded with plastic pots of paint and a cardboard box
\nof long-handled, soft-haired brushes.<\/p>\n
It’s the second time he has painted this particular wall on this
\nparticular butcher shop at 4016 Mansfield Highway. Artistic pride and
\na new vision propelled him back to a job he first tackled in 1981.<\/p>\n
Twelve feet high, the dreamy scene stretches 60 feet across. It’s
\njust one of dozens of murals the 70-year-old artist has created in
\nthe past 25 years.<\/p>\n
He has painted, it would seem, half the country: bald eagles in
\nOklahoma, stagecoaches in Ardmore, pastures in Tampa.<\/p>\n
One theme persists: the Wild West.<\/p>\n
The half-Cherokee returns again and again to bull-chested
\nlonghorns, coal-powered locomotives and dust-covered cowpokes.<\/p>\n
“I do big stuff,” he said, tossing back black hair arranged in an
\nElvis do.<\/p>\n
Foster speaks quickly in a pure Texas twang, punctuating each
\nsentence with a tug on the arm, a poke in the shoulder or a tap to
\nthe forehead.<\/p>\n
Paint fills the creases criss-crossing his sun-worn hands and face
\nand dots his sturdy leather shoes.<\/p>\n
Paint colors his dreams.<\/p>\n
“You either got it or you hadn’t,” he said, insisting that his
\ntalent comes naturally. He said he never took an art lesson.<\/p>\n
With prompting, his life story tumbles out. Denton born. Adopted.<\/p>\n
Daddy was in aircraft. Mama had money. Sign painter. Mural maker.<\/p>\n
Music man – mostly steel guitar.<\/p>\n
“You’re gonna be shocked. Lookee here,” he said, pulling out a
\nwell-thumbed portfolio containing his life story.<\/p>\n
The proudest moment in his long career came in Denver in 1985. He
\nearned $ 30,000 for painting a 280-foot-long train scene inside Union
\nStation.<\/p>\n
He won’t say what he’s earning for this particular job, insisting
\nhe doesn’t need money and makes do on Social Security. But over the
\nyears, he said, he’s ridden in Cadillac limosines and outspent
\nmillionaires.<\/p>\n
As he talks, he slips in the names of the famous and near-famous
\nhe has met over the years.<\/p>\n
Jimmy Carter’s mother. Dolly Parton’s manager. Florida’s governor.<\/p>\n
Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty.<\/p>\n
“Hon, I’ve been around,” the wiry Texan said, pointing to a
\npicture in his portfolio of a cafe he painted where Bonnie and Clyde
\n(and later Faye and Warren) once visited.<\/p>\n
It hasn’t been easy, he said, making no apologies for his
\noften-wicked ways, speaking bluntly of past troubles.<\/p>\n
Hard liquor. Cocaine. Hepatitis. Almost died in \u201888.<\/p>\n
“Lots of people haven’t seen me in a while. They probably think
\nI’m still on liquor,” he said. “But I’ve been sober for years. ”<\/p>\n
As much as he talks about himself, Foster talks more about the
\nbutcher shop’s owners, Don and Mary Dilks, who will have been married
\n36 years next month and are the parents of two and grandparents of
\nfour.<\/p>\n
“These people here mean more to me than all the painting in the
\nworld,” said, Foster, who has been married once and single for a long
\ntime. “They are family for sure. ”<\/p>\n
The couple and the artist met years back, after Mary Dilks,
\nherself an artist, painted a mural of a chuck wagon inside the shop.<\/p>\n
Customers, who daily pack the store for meatloaf, chicken-fried
\nsteak, bologna, foot-longs and the largest selection of smoked meats
\nin the area, responded.<\/p>\n
Soon, more artwork – most of it Foster’s – covered nearly every
\navailable inch of concrete outside.<\/p>\n
Eventually, Foster took off and wandered the country. And painted.<\/p>\n
But North Texas pulled him back. He returned, paintbrush in hand
\nand new visions in his head.<\/p>\n
“I’m 71 next May,” he said. “One day, I’d like to do a big
\ncoliseum or a stadium. That there would be pretty good. “<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Fort Worth Star-Telegram (Texas) Pride and a new vision bring a seasoned artist back to his original creation on a butcher shop wall. BYLINE: Dawn Shurmaitis, Special to the Star-Telegram The Michelangelo of Mansfield Highway is at it again. He squints one brown eye. Sticks out one flat thumb. Frowns. “I’ve got to highlight the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-55","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-profiles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/dawnshurmaitis.net\/works\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/dawnshurmaitis.net\/works\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/dawnshurmaitis.net\/works\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dawnshurmaitis.net\/works\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dawnshurmaitis.net\/works\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=55"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/dawnshurmaitis.net\/works\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/dawnshurmaitis.net\/works\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=55"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dawnshurmaitis.net\/works\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=55"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dawnshurmaitis.net\/works\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=55"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}