Thomas English is a Texas native whose father was an officer in the Air Force. The family moved frequently and it was while they were living in Germany he was able to begin painting classes studying with a professional German artist. That experience left a lasting impression that has stayed with him since.

He is a graduate of McCallum High School in Austin and attended (then) Southwest Texas State University for a year and a half before a stint in the U.S. Navy where he served two tours in Viet Nam. After the Service he completed his degree in art at Sul Ross State University in Alpine and then spent the next eighteen years working as an illustrator and graphic designer in Dallas, Austin, and then Montana. During his time in Montana, English has had a full and successful career.  He has been accepted for more than twenty five years in the prestigious C.M. Russell Museum Auction and has collectors from all over the U.S.  He has and continues to participate in fundraisers, auctions and invitational shows throughout the state and has been invited to be in quick draws and quick finishes in many venues. He has had two one man shows in Montana art museums with one, The Hockaday Museum in Kalispell, purchasing a Glacier National Park painting for their permanent collection.

English returns frequently to his home state of Texas sometimes several times a year to paint the Texas landscape. On those occasions he enjoys painting with an artist friend, Gordon Fowler.  Together they travel to many different areas to experience all the variety that Texas offers. “Though I dearly love painting in Montana and all it’s beauty, the Texas landscape gives me an opportunity to explore a completely different palette, and when there I feel a deep connection with the land”. “It definitely feels like coming home”.

Ronnie Weeks is best known for his very creative Assemblage Art.  He repurposes artifacts and articles that might wind up in the trash, but under his skillful eye, beauty abounds with intricate and captivating themes.

Gordon Fowler 

Gordon Fowler is a former high school quarterback and a lapsed rock-and-roll musician. As a Marine combat correspondent in Vietnam Cross of Gallantry. (The character named “Cowboy” in Stanley Kubrick’s Vietnam War movie, “Full Metal Jacket,” is based on Fowler.) He built his father’s small business-Wick Fowler’s Two-Alarm chili-into a multi-million-dollar national company. He opened La Zona Rosa, the popular Austin restaurant and nightclub made semi-famous in 1995 by the #1 country hit song ‘Amy’s Back in Austin”. He’s married to the popular rhythm-and-blues musician and recording artist Marcia Ball. And though it all, for more than three decades, Gordon Fowler has been a painter. 

Galleries and Museums Exhibited
Santa Fe/ Kennebunkport/throughout Texas
Awards: West Texas Watercolor Society, Kentucky Watercolor Society, Louisiana Watercolor Society, Waterloo Watercolor Group 

Commissions:
Dillard’s Department Stores and the Austin Museum of Art Commemorative watercolor to mark the Austin Museum of Art fundraiser/mall opening. 

Montgomery Museum of Fine Art “Stonehouse Farm” oil painting for a museum fundraiser John Sharp “Placedo Hall, circa 1958” 

Today, Gordon Fowler teaches painting at the Austin Museum of Art and paints in the Southwestern U.S., in Mexico and in Europe. 

Artist Comments:
Sometimes I feel I should price my work by the mile because in making it I’ve driven literally thousands of miles crisscrossing Texas, looking for the perfect set-up, passing dozens of good spots along the way.
You don’t have to look hard to find places of great beauty here in Texas, and I get to go looking more than anyone deserves. The resulting paintings are sort of a back roads travelogue on canvas.