Serving the High Plains

Bill Curry’s art recognized with gallery show, reception

link “Who’s got Who?” is the title of this Bill Curry bronze that depicts what happens when a reckless cowboy ropes a bear.

QCS Staff

Artist Bill Curry’s reception Friday was an arts and culture event, but done up Quay County style.

Coats and ties were out, Stetsons and jeans were the dress code of the day to honor a self-described cowboy artist and the extensive display of his work on exhibit at the Eastern New Mexico Arts and Culture Center’s Artspace gallery in downtown Tucumcari.“I grew up cowboy,” Curry, sporting a Stetson and jeans, said. “If you’ve ever been a cowboy, you never leave it.”

His artwork, his paintings, drawing and bronze pieces, he said are the result of “persistence.”

“My art is a result of a lot of time and a lifetime of work,” he said.

His most recent artistic focus, he said, has been on hands. On one wall of the Artspace gallery, he said, his works feature the hands of a couple who had been married for 75 years, the hands of a young mother and newborn baby and a small child’s hand grasping a father’s finger, which he said is “the most popular piece I’ve done.”Curry, now 81, has combined art, banking and public service in his career. He served a Quay County Commissioner from 2004 to 2012.

 
 
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