TD Kelsey

T.D. Kelsey’s ranch in Pompey’s Pillar, Montana is more that just the place he lives and sculpts. It is home to horses and long horn cattle, it’s a sanctuary for over forty head of deer who bed down every night and even fawn there, and numerous elk who stop by in the winter. But mostly it’s a source of inspiration for the wildlife sculptor who prefers wide open spaces away from cities and crowds.

When it comes to subject matter, Kelsey admits that people just aren’t that interesting to him. “Animals are a lot easier to be around. What you see is what you get.” And as for his favorite thing to sculpt, he says without a second thought, “Horses. If I’m asked to do whatever I want, horses get the nod. Right after that it’s probably the ranch stuff.”

Kelsey, who was born and raise on a ranch just north of Bozeman, Montana, maintains the air of a true country gentleman. When I first introduced myself to him, he removed his cowboy hat, held it against his crest and said, “Nice to meet you, ma’am.” In fact, almost everything he said included a formal salutation: ‘Well, ma’am, yes’ or ‘Thank you, ma’am, that’s fine’. Ever present in his sculptures is that soft spoken, careful manner and tenderness toward his subjects that emanates from the work and gives art patrons a true understanding of the Western way of life.

When he was young he created a lot of artwork but says he wasn’t encouraged at home. “On a ranch there’s a lot of work to do. I was kind of a closet artist, I guess you’d call it -- after dark, under dim light, that sort of thing, when you couldn’t really do anything else,” he said. “Then it was not frowned upon as much.” Beyond that, Kelsey has no formal training in the arts. His volumes of knowledge about the animals he sculpts come from years of riding saddle broncs in rodeos, training cutting horses, and ranching.

But Kelsey gives full credit for his career as an artist to his high school sweetheart, Sidni, who he married after graduation in 1964. “She kept telling me that it’s okay to be an artist, it’s not a bad thing, it’s a good thing,” he recalled. “At that time, I was breaking and shoeing a lot of horses for the dude ranches. Sidni, being the business person, would have me do drawings, watercolors and little sculptures and sell them for a dollar on up to five dollars. I just did art because I liked it. She worked to where we could make a living at it.”

In September of 2000, Sidni passed away, leaving the artist she so greatly inspired behind to continue on without her. “It really worries me now. I used to go into the studio and  sing and laugh, make noises like the animals I was sculpting. It’s difficult because I don’t have that -- I hope I get it back again,” he said. “She gave me the confidence to just dive in. It might not be right but at least for that very second I thought it was right.”

Though she wasn’t an artist, Sidni was vital to Kelsey in the studio. His constant companion, they talked art from the moment  they woke until they fell asleep at night. “She had the best eye of any person, artist or non-artist, I’ve ever seen,” he said. “She loved art since she was a little kid. When we were first married she was always trying to buy little sketches for $50 and we didn’t have a dime, we couldn’t afford it. But when we got a little money she’d buy a piece of artwork.”

Over the years, she became so attune to Kelsey’s work that the day he emerged from a fourteen hour sculpting marathon with a piece that was dramatically different -- fluid and expressionistic, as compared to the previously very tight realistic work -- she encouraged him to continue despite the consequences. “I don’t know why it happened. The final sculpture was very loose. Sidni liked it, I liked it, and a lot of my collectors hated it. They weren’t used to it. In fact it hung around and didn’t sell for a long time,” he said.

But he enjoyed how this new style of working gave him the ability to create motion and drama in his work. As for his collectors, he said, “They finally gave up. But I still have some that say, I wish you’d do stuff like you used to.” His change in direction, however, has certainly paid off. Recently that breakthrough piece resold for 10 times its original asking price.

A large portion of Kelsey’s work is monumental pieces for museums and private collectors across the country. Often brainstorming with Sidni, Kelsey has developed concepts that stretch his boundaries and let his imagination take flight. One such monument, commissioned by the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, Wyoming, will be over 70 feet long when completed. The sculpture depicts a herd of buffalo being chased by several Native Americans who are attempting to spook them over a cliff. It runs around a quarter of the Museum’s new rotunda and ends at a huge window. There the piece heads inside with three buffalo falling over the cliff. Appropriately, the museum will display the remains from an archeological dig of an actual buffalo jump just below the sculpture.

“I like working big and I don’t know why. If it’s an interesting subject then it’s fun to do. But the older I get the less fun it is because the clay’s heavy. By the time I mash around 3,000 or 4,000 pounds of clay, I say, Man when I get this one done I’m never doing another one. But I do. I hate to say it’s an ego trip but I don’t know why else I’d do it. I hope I don’t have a big ego but I think sometimes that’s why.”

The first stage of the Cody Museum’s piece has been installed inside. Next will be the outdoor portion, a project Kelsey estimates will take five years to complete. Beyond monuments, Kelsey fits in several shows each year. He travels to the far reaches of the world in search of new material to sculpt – something he did for an entire year after Sidni’s death. “I was just running. I didn’t know what to do,” he said. Yet, with collectors and museums pushing him to continue on, he finally returned to the studio. But Sidni remains a constant for him, a force that keeps him sculpting. “Sidni was so much a part of my work. If my sculpture is worth so much as a second look it’s because of Sidni, without a doubt. If it weren’t for her I wouldn’t be an artist. She has always been my hero and all that goes along with it.”