member since october 27th, 2006

My name is Thomas Charles Bullock.  I was raised just east of Yellowstone Park in a small community called Cody, Wyoming.  I could hardly wait for my 10th birthday.  That was the first year I was old enough to work on my grandfather’s cattle ranch.  Mornings began at 4:30.  The horses needed to be rounded up and grained in the barn before we ate breakfast at the foreman’s house.  The smell of coffee surrounded the table full of cakes, eggs, bacon, potatoes and orange juice.  Judd would say, “Eat an extra cake boys.  It’s gotta last ya to the top'a Squaw Creek an back.”  We’d eat till our stomachs couldn’t hold another bite, thank Veral for breakfast, grab our hats and coats at the door, and make for the barn in the dark.  After saddling our horses, we’d tie on our slickers, in case of rain, and head for the mountains.  The early morning hours were full of mystery and wonder as the day broke.  There were coyotes to bark at, deer, elk, moose, lions, wolves and bear to see, stories to hear and smells to smell.  The trails were steep, the air was cold and the mountains never ceased to stir the imagination of my young mind.  The sun would rise to find us half way up the side of a mountain, pack horses loaded down with salt, or pushing a herd of 300 cows and calves, bawling and protesting a move. 

My summers were spent in those mountains until my wife and I had our first daughter.  I doctored cows, broke horses, branded calves, packed salt, gathered rank bulls and repaired an awful lot of fence.  I’ve been bucked off, bitten, stepped on and kicked by horses, chased by angry cows, roped massive bulls and in general lived in paradise.

I don’t ride the mountains anymore.  My legs can’t take the saddle but my mind returns there and my hands recreate the memories of those days in clay.  I haven’t taken any formal sculpting classes, so I can’t say what techniques I use to sculpt.  All I know is that often a piece will feel right or wrong long before my eyes tell me what needs to be done to the piece.  I’ve painted, carved wood and thrown pottery but the excitement surrounding each new bronze is intoxicating to me.