Western artist Claudia Fletcher knew early on she had to draw

By Josh Lopez / For The Clovis Independent Friday, Apr. 04, 2008

In Claudia Fletcher's painting, "The Trade-In?" an early 20th century cowboy considers giving his horse to a motorcycle shop that takes all trades.

But in reality, the Clovis artist wouldn't trade horses for anything.

As a child, she loved horses so much that she drew them on the margins of her catechism books.

Fletcher said there's a camaraderie between horses and girls. "I think it's the freedom of getting on a horse and galloping across the field and getting away from home," Fletcher said.

Her first artworks were simple. "I remember drawing on napkins with Crayolas," Fletcher said. "I loved to draw when I was a kid. There just was no doubt in my mind that I had to do something with art."

Fletcher, 59, grew up in the countryside seven miles outside Madera with her younger sister, Jeanie.

When Fletcher was 10 years old her parents, Marie, a schoolteacher, and Bill, a farmer, gave in to her endless badgering for a horse. They bought her Corky, a brown and white Pinto.

"I was just a horse nut," Fletcher said.

Corky was the start of what would become a passion for Fletcher.

"I got to be a pretty decent rider after a while," Fletcher said.

She continued riding until she was 40, when a lack of time forced her to give it up.

Fletcher attended Madera High, where she was mentored by art instructors Gene Griffith and Heinz Kusel.

"You remember the outstanding ones, and she's one of the outstanding ones," said Griffith, 69, who taught Fletcher more than 40 years ago.

Griffith recalled Fletcher's tenacity, and praises her for achieving her goals.

"She's worked hard her whole life," Griffith said, "and she's stuck to her dream of being an artist."

After high school, Fletcher attended Fresno City College and Immaculate Heart College in Southern California. During a break, she used her bedroom wall to paint her first mural.

When she was 19, Fletcher painted customers' portraits in pastel for $5 each. Back then, $5 would buy a lot of pizza, she said.

Nowadays her paintings fetch more than lunch money.

Fletcher donated a painting to a recent auction benefiting Rainbow Ranch Equine Therapeutic Center, an organization that provides horse rides to children with disabilities. The painting, "Say Cheese," was the auction's highest seller, earning $4,500. It was featured in the center's "Art at the End of the Rainbow" calendar for the month of January 2008.

The journey to financial independence wasn't fast or easy.

For many years, Fletcher worked as a sign maker, a graphic artist and a layout designer. Sometimes she struggled.

In the early '70s, Fletcher was one of the few women who painted custom designs on motorcycles. Fletcher and her work were eventually featured in an issue of Custom Chopper Magazine.

She said many of those years were lean, and "probably, if I didn't have other people in my life at different times, I wouldn't have made it."

Fletcher considers the year of her big break to be 1992, when she painted the Clovis Rodeo poster for the first time. Except for 2000 and 2001, she has painted the rodeo's poster every year since then.

"I watched her growing up," said Jaime Gould, an artist from Clovis. "She's one of those artists that you look at her work and you watch her work and you never question her talent and ability."

Gould is one of the few students Fletcher has taught on a personal level. Gould said Fletcher has been a "huge mentor" for her.

"I've known Claudia all my life," Gould said, "and pretty much every time I'm around her, I learn something new.

"She has the respect and love and appreciation of Clovis and anyone who's ever seen her work."

Clovis Chamber of Commerce showed its appreciation in 2004 when it inducted Fletcher into the Clovis Hall of Fame, and gave her the Spirit of Clovis Award.

For the past 10 years, Fletcher's home has been in downtown Clovis. In her hallway she still has one of the paintings she made when she was 9 years old. A horse rushing through a green pasture painted in broad, simple strokes hangs just a few feet from her award-winning, recent work.

"One thing that people have consistently said about my portrait work," Fletcher said, "is that I not only paint a picture of whatever I'm painting -- the horse or the dog -- but I also capture that animal's personality. When you look at a picture, it's not just a dead picture of an animal. It's got its own life."

Friendly Faces is an occasional series about people who make Clovis a great place to live. To nominate someone to be profiled in this series, please e-mail Patti J. Lippert at plippert@clovisindependent.com. Josh Lopez is a freelance writer.