A Conversation With Contemporary Cowboy Artist Fred Lyman

"Junius in Tennessee,” a piece for an unfinished movie written with 'contemporary cowboy' artist Fred Lyman (above) in mind.  

“Go into the arts. I'm not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art no matter how well or badly is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.” – Kurt Vonnegut

The Payson Chronicle had the special honor of spending a little time getting to know a talented local soul, a man whose long career as an architectural designer and mixed media artist is as inspiring at his heels as promising at his toes, as his imagination spurs ceaseless approach. Known by some as the 'Contemporary Cowboy,' a title accorded a persona which bleeds into art, Fred Lyman was born in Spring Lake, Utah. It was “a few months before the Payson Hospital was finished, in my Grandfather Myers' house,” he said. “We lived for a time on several farms in that same Spring Lake neighborhood, including my Grandfather Lyman's nearby. We lived several years in Payson and spent all the warm months in Strawberry, where my father was a cow-herder for several years, in charge of the 'south end'. We lived in the little cabin out in the meadow about a mile south of the dike and the spillway, near Charlie Madsen's fishing camp. When I was ten, we bought grandpa Myers' farm and I lived there until I was married.” The Lyman family kept that farm for years. Fred's brother, Brent, owns it today.

“I attended Payson schools, except for the sixth grade in the old Spring Lake School,” recalled Lyman, “then took a BFA at BYU. I have studied printmaking at Kahla Institute in Berkeley, CA and hand Graphics in Santa Fe, NM.”

Lyman's genius was recognized while a young student in the old Spring Lake School, long since closed, and the recognition would encourage him as he traveled a road paved with success and recognition. His resumé is pages thick and, perhaps, would require an article of its own to even touch the surface. He maintained a forty-five-year-long career as an interior/architectural designer and architectural illustrator, fifteen years as director of design for Clark Leaming Designs for Business. “I designed numerous projects in Salt Lake City, San Francisco, and San Diego,” he said, “and was a key figure in al of their earliest rehab projects in west downtown SLC including Arrow Press Square and the Designs for Business and Clark Leaming headquarters at 375 West Second South. That restoration and design project was awarded the AIA award for restoration of the year in 1982.”

Some may be familiar with the stage backdrop for the theater at the Peteetneet he created, which was commissioned over a decade ago by the Payson Cowboy Poetry Association. Aptly titled, “Cowboy Poetry,” the 12'x80' painting is made up of two 25' and one 30' panels in acrylic on unstructured canvas. The Park City Arts Council would pick up his work in three digital reproductions, featuring it as part of the Olympics Arts Project from February-May 2002.

Lyman's devotion to art continues to flourish, manifesting, oftentimes, in ethereal paintings. He shares a sampling of his brilliance in a conversation published in this week's edition of The Payson Chronicle, available on stands now.