Monuments To The Cowboy Life: Jeff Wolf Sculpts By Western Creed -- “In Dreams“

Pictured: Sculpture by Jeff Wolf: "The Surround"

Jeff Wolf left a career in the arena with Cotton Rosser’s bull, that coveted ride he’d take, at last, as a rodeo cowboy. Infinitely the artist, he set out to supplement his living running a business called Uinta Livestock Equipment. The livestock supply company’s first location was in Provo and, next, the Utah County borderland along the westside frontage road abutting Springville and Spanish Fork. When the late-Eighties recession lurched the economy into a downturn, “It pretty much took us out of business,” he said.

By the mid-Nineties, Wolf was managing a ranch in northwestern Colorado, running 6,500 head of yearling cattle on a mountain ranch. Along with some 1,400 buffalo.

Managing buffalo. What was that like?

“It was a nightmare,” Wolf said.

The buffalo were brought in from Canada, New Mexico, and Gillette, Wyoming, to an old cow ranch that was in disrepair. Roaming elk tore down fencing, Wolf explained. His team did what they could to mend the broken places. “But the buffalo would keep breaking out and going wherever they were wanting,” some wandering as far away as 175 miles from the ranch site.

“Yeah, you tie into a big old buffalo and you know you’ve got your hands full.”

But from nightmares dreams can awaken the artist to lush journeys. Ideas shake the willing into action and, sometimes, a profound understanding of that something speaking out for creation.

Find the rest of this story in the upcoming edition of The Payson Chronicle.