NARRIE TOOLE BIOGRAPHY

I grew up on a wheat farm on the Kansas Colorado line west of Manter that my father, Howard Toole, started. He came to Kansas from Tennessee at 17, lived in a dugout through the dirt bowl years and "suitcase" farmed for a family in central Kansas. He also ran a gas station on the KS/CO line, where the southeastern Colorado "moonshiners" came through with their loads of sugar. Everyone had a "jar-ring" on their nose during those years of prohibition and nobody asked any questions. It is said that more liquor came out of the cedar "breaks" of southeastern Colorado than out of Kentucky. The county still hosts few people...

My mother, Leone Starks, grew up in the oil fields of Oklahoma, moving often as Grandpa's "roughneck" job demanded. After graduating from college, she took a job teaching school at Manter where she met my father. Loving the arts, she consistently provided me with paints, colored pencils, and materials as I was growing up.

The farm provided both myself and my brothers with "creative challenges." We raided the junk pile, dug pit houses, and rode horses, bareback, every day, to the neighbors and the "Buckeye" store. The evening stories told by my parents, grandparents and Uncle Howard (click for web poetry reading 1 and web poetry reading 2)about their colorful lives still bring vivid pictures to mind. These stories, along with growing up with the land and the animals, gave me my interests to this day. I admire and value them all.

Most of my adult life involved ranching and farming, and most of the time I have lived in counties with less than 1500 residents. I graduated from a class of 40 in high school, then attended and received a degree in Art Education from K-State in Manhattan, Kansas. Along with the ranching, I created pottery professionally for 16 years.

Riding and driving large pastures to check on steers taught watchfulness and listening. Quick evaluation of each animal for bloat, pinkeye, allergies, pneumonia and bullers was critical. My beloved mare "Marda" taught me the intelligence and dedication that horses sometime reveal to people. She seemed to know what to do before I could signal her. I did not rope, but was good at "hazing" the stock to whoever was. If I was pulling the trailer, reading the rope horses' ears would let you know if there was a catch...ears back meant that the rider had missed. Western Kansas pasture work with all the badger holes, arroyos, and old wire on a horse running full tilt was dangerous, tie a 800-pound steer on, and things get interesting quickly.

After years of feeder cattle, I pursued an interest in developing a registered cowherd. For the next sixteen years, I personally, managed, raised, and showed a much-respected and well-known herd of cattle. With my experience from feeder cattle, I selected genetics for carcass traits, bunkline conversion, docility, and maternal suitable for short grass country. My son, Clinton Harris, was active in 4-H, so that branched out to beef projects and it all worked together well. As a promotion for the herd, we regularly attended the National Western Stock Show with a string of cattle often winning classes and having a Reserve Champion Senior Bull in 1996. They were good honest cattle and a joy to work with.

During the 20+ years of ranching, I recorded lots of scenes. Long rides on miles of pastures. Processing and doctoring the cattle. Weather. The danger that comes with trying to care for and protect cattle and horses...working when you're so tired you can't hardly walk. Losing your boots in knee deep mud and manure, scours, infections, things that aren't romantic at all. Working in 105-degree temperatures with 40+ wind or 20 degrees below zero with the same wind. The joy of saving the calf that isn't breathing or the one that has dust pneumonia. The pleasure of seeing a calf bedded in straw and out of the wind during a blizzard, soft munching when the wind noise is shut out. All the years gave me the excellent base to paint these animals.

I participated in KARL Class V (Kansas Agriculture Rural Leadership), during which I moved to Fort Collins, Colorado area. KARL is an outstanding Agriculture class/group that promotes networking both in state, nationally, and internationally through a two-year class. Thirty people are chosen from all aspects of agriculture. As well as Washington DC, our class had the pleasure of going to Australia and New Zealand to see how rural areas there handled economic development issues, education and marketing. We visited feedlots, dairies, flower and vegetable markets, grain farms and government offices, all the while looking for ideas to apply at home.

While in Fort Collins, I enjoyed working for and helping start up a new veterinary clinic, Wright Pet Clinic. Dr. Wright's interest and support of art, along with mentor artist Patti Andre, made me realized that I wanted to get back into art...full time. Eventually I choose oils as my medium.

In 2005, I moved to a small ranch house in southwestern New Mexico where I set up my "Estudio de la Montura" in the Mimbres east of Silver City. The Mimbres has a long history of ranching so it felt right at home. Silver City is an active area for artists but with that, retains the same older rural character I loved as a child. Here my "Estudio de la Montura," situated on a "saddle" of the Mimbres Mountains, was developed overlooking the Mimbres and Gallinas River valleys.

Using horses in my work and managing and doctoring cattle, along with years out in the pastures closely observing, has provided my firsthand knowledge for painting the animals I portray. My oil paintings of ranch animals and wildlife of the area show close-ups of their individual spirits and their place in history as the "Cowboy Support Crew" and honor the ranching way of life. My work has been used for magazine covers and is internationally collected and found in corporate and widespread private collections.

I also am a Women Artists of the West (WAOW) Associate as well as Oil Painters of America Associate.

I hope you have found this information interesting...I've been fortunate to have such an interesting life along with interesting and supportive people moving through it!

Respectfully,
Narrie Toole