HARPER…CHICKENMAN!!!

Cash for cluckers’ paintings

may rock art world

BY HARPER SCOTT CLARK

TELEGRAM STAFF WRITER

SALADO — Bucka-bucka-buckabuck-

brrrAWWK!

The clucker cotillion begins its

mornings at Lonnie Edwards’ art studio on

the banks of Salado Creek with a hen, four

chicks and a rooster dancing in circles on

the surface of a newly stretched canvas.

Edwards, 72, drizzles acrylic paint on the

canvases in rhythmic waves, streaks and

splotches similar to a Jackson Pollock

work. Then the birds strut their stuff.

First they leave the impressions of their

claws and footprints in the pigment.

Hopping around they transfer all the colors

of the rainbow into the pristine white areas

of the canvas as they cluck and cackle their

way to neo-impressionist fame.

Edwards appears to be in

perfect simpatico with his colleagues.

They are, he said, expressing their feelings.

Edwards, an artisan who has

spent much of his lifetime

fashioning objects in metal,

recently took a departure from

hammering iron and bronze on

an anvil to painting, using his

chickens as his paintbrushes.

The dots, blips and slash

marks the birds leave are a

type of pointillism, Edwards

said. The finished canvas is a

hybrid. Edwards’s part of the

composition is abstract expressionism

— also called action

painting — and the birds’

efforts come under the neoimpressionist

school.

The cacklers have adopted

certain airs since donning

berets and embarking on artful

careers. Plain farmyard names

like Henny Penny and Rennie

Rooster have been dropped for

monikers with more panache.

Some include Spanish names

to reflect the flair of their

Southwest environment.

Pollo Picasso, Gallina

O’Keefe, J. Gallo Pollock and

Fowl Monet make up the

Salado Creek palette society.

How did Edwards get the

idea to employ cacklers as

paintbrushes?

During an interview in June

about his work in metal,

Edwards was asked about the

colorful hens that ran into his

open-air studio from outdoors.

They appeared to watch

intently as he worked at his

anvil.

“I said then that I bred them

for their vibrant multi-hued

patterns because I wanted to

paint them one day. But it

wouldn’t be paintings of the

chickens. It would be paintings

by the chickens.”

Edwards’ comment ended up

in the Temple Daily Telegram.

Dallas restaurant magnate

Gene Street heard about

Edwards’ project from family

members in Salado and

checked the story out online.

Before retiring, Street owned

a major interest in more than

250 restaurants worldwide that

included El Chico Restaurants,

The Spaghetti Warehouse,

Good Eats Cafe and the Black

Eyed Pea, and today is a partner

in a cable television show

called Cheaters — a late night

show that tracks down unfaithful

spouses and life partners

with a private detective.

“Lonnie is a pretty creative

guy,” Street said. “He’s done

some things for me in the

past.”

He called Edwards and gave

him seven canvas sizes.

“I said, ‘Lonnie, I want

seven white backgrounds with

colorful chicken feet and I

don’t want to talk to you anymore

about it. Just call back

and tell me what the price will

be. When you are finished I

will come get them.’”

Street said they agreed on a

price in the thousands

although the exact amount is a

confidence.

“I’ll put Lonnie’s finished

works in a bedroom in my

house that has no art,” Street

said. “It’s all white so I need

some color in it. I’ll call it my

chicken room.”

Edwards said he had to come

to terms quickly with how to

get chickens to do their part. It

could be worse than herding

cats, he said.

He built a portable chicken

coop 3 feet wide, 6 feet long

and 18 inches high. It had no

bottom and could be placed on

a table over two newly

stretched canvases. All he had

to do was open a door and pop

Pollo Picasso inside.

A second table was fashioned

with a glass top. This

allowed the photographer to

get a bird’s eye view from

below of the painting process.

But it had a second purpose.

When the chickens had completed

their work, Edwards

would place a fresh, white

canvas face down on the wet

paint design. He would press

firmly and pull an impression.

“It’s basic lithography,”

Edwards said.

Edwards is a stickler for

treating his colleagues with

respect. When chickens were

brought out of the cage, he

washed off their feet in tepid

tap water before putting them

on the ground.

In the beginning he feared

his associates might leave their

own editorial comments in the

design. So he fashioned diapers

from plastic bags. As it

turned out, he didn’t need

them. A trial run indicated the

birds were too engrossed in

dabbling in their art to think

about leaving anything extra

on the canvas.

Street said years ago he started

collecting Andy Warhol

paintings. He also has original

photos of Elvis Presley and

many of the old rockers.

“I might do a one-man show

at one of the Dallas galleries

with Lonnie’s pieces so that

our Salado boys are a little

more well-known in the circle,”

Street said.

Tyler Fletcher, an art aficionado

who is also a rare

book and antique dealer in

Salado, said the concept has a

bohemian quality.

“I believe this will resonate

in the demimonde of the art

world,” Fletcher said.

Is Edwards the first to create

chicken art?

“I don’t know that to be a

fact,” he said. “You always

find out later that somebody

else came up with your unique

idea before you,” he said.

“Great ideas often mix on the

same palette.”

WHICH CAME FIRST?
FIRST CAME MAN 

Lonnie Edwards

prepares a canvas for his

chickens to walk over

using a technique first pioneered

by Jackson Pollock

in the 1950s. Abstract

expressionism became

known as “action painting”

because interaction

between the artist and the

medium created the feel of

movement.

THEN THE CHICKEN

Pollo Picasso, Gallina

O’Keefe, J. Gallo

Pollock, and Fowl

Monet make up the Salado

Creek palette society. 

The four pullets complete the

painting process by standing

over a Lonnie Edwards

masterpiece and placing

their pointillist work on a

canvas prepared by

Edwards in classic abstract

expressionist style. The

hybrid style creates a medley

of colors jetting around

the canvas.

A look at practical cats: Shop cat tradition still has lives left in Central Texas

A look at practical cats: Shop cat tradition still has lives left in Central Texas

by Harper Scott Clark - Telegram Staff Writer

Published April 16, 2008

Some may think keeping a cat at a business is a quaint notion from the past. The custom goes back centuries in England and spread to America in Colonial days.

But in Central Texas the concept is alive and well.

Eddy-Puss, or Eddy for short, holds court at Fletcher’s Books and Antiques in Salado. Owner Tyler Fletcher said Eddy, 16, is a greeter for customers and also patrols St. Joseph’s Episcopal Church next door.

Eddy came to him by way of the British attaché at Fort Sill, Col. John Harrington.   

 

Eddy-Puss

“Harrington and his wife were returning from a New Year’s Eve party when they spotted a bloody little ball of fur by the curb,” Fletcher said of the young cat who had been hit by a car, breaking its back legs and severing its tail. 

They took him to a veterinarian and he healed quickly. But the Harringtons couldn’t take the cat with them to England.

“Lt. Gen. Colby Broadwater at Fort Sill was an old friend and former customer at the shop,” Fletcher said of the retired officer. “He called and asked me if I wanted a cat. I said no.”

A few weeks later Harrington showed up at the bookstore with the cat and some carpentry tools.

“I kept telling him ‘I don’t want a cat,’” said Fletcher. “Instead he began cutting a cat door in an antique door to my shop.” When Fletcher complained about his carving into a valuable old door, Harrington just harrumphed.

“Oh, you will be fine,” Harrington replied. “You Yanks don’t know what old is.”

After Harrington left the cat immediately jumped into Fletcher’s lap and claimed him as his own. “He’s very sociable,” said Fletcher. “He greets customers. And in the last two years he has killed about 200 mice.”

Eddy is also a regular visitor at the church next door where he comes uninvited during services and sits in the pews next to the worshipers “If he gets bored, he turns and leaves.”

Fletcher said Eddy likes to sit in the bishop’s chair - a seat reserved for retired Bishop Claude Payne of Salado.

“He attended a wedding once,” Fletcher said. “At the crucial moment he walked down the aisle and stood between the bride and groom. He looked first at the bride, then at the groom. Then he left.”

The Rev. Tom Wallace, who leads services at St. Joseph’s, said that from time-to-time Eddy comes to sit in the front pew or stand at the foot of the altar while he’s performing the communion.

“There’s a chair I sit in at the front and Eddy wants to sit there,” Wallace said. “We have had confrontations over these things but often he wins.” Wallace said the traditional symbol of the Holy Spirit is the dove. “But we’ve decided that Eddy instills the embodiment of the Holy Spirit around here and in the chapel. He comes and goes at the proper times and seems to keep things in good order. So we may have a new symbol for the Holy Spirit – a black and white tuxedo cat.”

Yamaha, in his natural habitat.

At Marine Outlet in Temple, Yamaha and Marina hang out, said Linda Smith. Smith said Yamaha, an orange male, came to live at the shop three years ago – a gift from a friend. “Everyone loved him so much he’s still here,” she said.

  

That Memorial Day he went missing, she said. Five days later they found him behind an air-conditioning unit mewing weakly. Ms. Smith said a predator had attacked him and a back leg was mangled and broken. "We took him to the vet and had a pin put in the bone, ” she said. “The clinic drew cat paws on his little cast.”

Yamaha’s main job today is to lounge on merchandise and give the store local color.

Marina lounges around Marine Outlet in Temple.

Marina has been at the store 10 years, she said. She once got into a fishing boat a customer had parked in the drive. When he drove off, away went Marina looking terrified.

They reached the customer at home, who said he had made only one stop at a bank in downtown Temple. Linda and her husband, Rick, spent five days combing the streets for her.

“I didn’t know there were so many gray cats in downtown Temple,” she said. Two weeks later Marina showed up at the store. She had crossed the Santa Fe railroad tracks and six lanes of Interstate 35 to make her way home to the shop.

“She had lost weight and was very vocal,” said Ms. Smith. “She got up on the fish tank and drank a lot of water. Then she ate a bunch and went to sleep for three days. She doesn’t go out anymore.”

Lucky peers at traffic on Third Street from his perch 
at Aunt Minnie’s Antiques in Temple

Sharon Robbins said her mother, Vernell Rayzor, found Lucky, outside their business – Aunt Minnie’s Antiques on Third Street in downtown Temple – five years ago.

“He was only 5 weeks old – just a handful – and hollering,” said Ms. Robbins.

She told the solid black kitten he was “lucky” not to have been run over by a car. The name stuck.

Lucky is a natural customer greeter and gives tours of the shop, she said. A lot of times customers will pick him up and carry him around. “We do have customers who come here just to see him, not to shop,” she said, explaining that he recognizes certain customers when their cars drive up and he greets them at the door highly excited. “There are other people who tell us they come by at night to play with him through the window.

Lluigi makes a desk his spot at Dodge Country Chrysler Jeep in Killeen

Bill Sellers manages the body shop for Dodge Country Chrysler Jeep in Killeen. His shop foreman is Lluigi, a large, gray neutered male.

Sellers said Lluigi was a feral kitten that knocked on the shop’s door one night asking to come in to be the resident mouse catcher. “You couldn’t run him off now,” said Sellers. “He has his own door and lots of food and doesn’t need more than that. He lives the good life he deserves.”

Sellers said Lluigi is in charge of the whole place.

“He never takes off sick,” Sellers said. “He’s never asked for a raise. And he’s very loyal. You couldn’t ask for a better employee. And there are no mice around here.

Tuli guards the file cabinets at Cole’s Appraisal Services in Killeen

Cole’s Appraisal Services in downtown Killeen has had Tuli, a brindle-marked female, for 11 years. Nelwyn Cole said she showed up in her backyard at home as a tiny kitten.

“I heard our dogs barking at her and went out to find her screaming bloody murder,” said Mrs. Cole, laughing.

She and her husband, Larry, decided Tuli would be a shop cat. Tuli has a cat jungle gym with a perch on top in a bay window that looks out on the city street. That’s where she spends her time.

“That’s her throne,” said Mrs. Cole. “No one bothers her there. She watches people and traffic and when birds are out there she makes that sound in her throat.”

Tuli is not a greeter, but is a very private soul, which is OK, said the Coles. It’s not a walk-in business. “I play with her when I get to work in the morning and that takes care of her for the day.”

Rock curls up on a rug at Harris Law Firm in Killeen

Bill Harris at the Harris Law Firm in downtown Killeen has had Rock, a mottled-coated neutered male, for 18 years.

Harris said Rock as a kitten somehow got up into the ceiling of his office and then fell down inside the wall.

“I heard him hollering and took the wall apart to get him out,” Harris said.

Harris said he has no particular job duties. “The best thing he does is hold down the carpet,” he said with a chuckle. “He used to be a greeter for clients, but he’s semi-retired now. But he greets us every morning.”

hclark@temple-telegram.com