There’s a bit of soul, grace and strength in the images that come to life on the canvas of Georgia artist Patsi Wolfe.

A roaming buffalo. A proud mother duck.  A prized set of spurs. It’s more than the colors, shadows and textures that leave an impression, as the eye and the light dance across her oil paintings. It’s a feeling conjured up like an attachment to a family antique that admirers want for their own treasured keepsake.

That’s why when Richard and Annette Merillat decided they wanted a painting of their Quarter Horse stallion, Sonnys Securitee, it was Patsi they sought out.  And as a guest at the prestigious C.M. Russell Art Show & Auction, she captured a second place from among the 122 artists on display, just one of the numerous awards she’s won over the span of her 50-plus year-long career. But the most treasured of all her compliments came from a client who is now a long-time collector of her work.

“I can still hear his voice when I repeat his words in my head,” Patsi recalled. “He told me that looking at my art is like looking beyond the realism of the picture and that it was as if he was standing in front of it himself.  That gave me goosebumps and still does.”      

Picking up a brush

As a child, Patsi would doodle and sketch for hours on end. She picked up anything that would leave a mark on paper. Her favorite tool was just a regular pencil that was slightly dull. She tried painting in kindergarten but found the paint brush hard to control.  With practice and a lot of trial and error, she taught herself to paint with a supportive grip on the brushes rather than such a tense firm locked hand.  There were no art classes and she never sat for one single lesson. Her gift came from God and she says the heavenly Father above has directed her path in life.

“I never thought once in my life that my painting was a talent,” she explained. “It is a gift, truly a gift, plain and simple and I’m so grateful for each and every blessing and miracle shared with me.”

Patsi’s passion for horses came as early and as naturally as her ability to paint and with an equal dose of enthusiasm. Her parents often described her joyful reaction to seeing a horse as a “happy fit.” Her legs and arms would dance around eliciting a smile and a laugh out loud.

Her folks had a penchant for travel, so Patsi grew up on the road, attending more than 15 schools, before graduating from high school in Atlanta, Georgia. But that didn’t stop the horse-crazy kid from finding a way to ride. By the time she turned 15, Patsi had already been showing her Appaloosa in all-around classes at local open shows. But once she ran her first barrel pattern a whole new world opened up.

Big Red, a 16-hand tall, sorrel Thoroughbred. that couldn’t make it as a race horse, became her first partner and eventually her heart horse.

“It wasn’t because he wasn’t fast enough – that boy could run like the wind – it was because no jockey could ride him,” she said.

Big Red’s tongue was almost cut through from his racetrack training and the jockeys at Pompano Race Track in Florida, where she worked one summer ponying race horses, called him “Steel Jaws” because it took whoever was running him half a mile to get him to stop.

“I bought him for $250 dollars and even though he ran through my six-panel board fence countless times, he loved me enough to wrap around the barrels like a snake and win,” Patsi said.

When she turned 18, Patsi returned to Alma, Georgia, the town she calls home, and lived for a while with her grandparents, before buying a place of her own down the road. While still at her grandparents’ place she started breeding and raising horses to keep herself stocked with a steady supply of barrel racing prospects.

Painting Her Way Around the Barrel Circuit

In the early 1980s, after the death of her father, Harry,  Patsi packed up her brushes and canvas and traveled from rodeo to rodeo on the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (PRCA) and Women’s Professional Rodeo Association (WPRA) tours with her best friend and biggest fan –  her mother, Phenna Wolfe – riding shotgun. Their little white Peekapoo dogs kept guard from the back seat.

Between runs, she would return to the trailer to paint as “Mommy” took turns grazing the horses. Patsi’s paintings were gaining a following and soon she started setting up a small booth by her trailer to sell her creations. As demand grew for her paintings, Patsi branched out into renting vendor booths at professional rodeos, while still competing with two or three horses.

Her most impactful publicity came, ironically, from the rodeo announcers who kept talking about her paintings over the loud speakers.

One summer day in 1982, at a rodeo in Florida, World Champion Barrel Racer Lynn McKenzie was there to compete.

“I was saddling my horse, Sparky, who was tied to my trailer when she walked up to us and told me that if I concentrated on my runs as hard as I do my painting, nobody would ever beat me, including her,” Patsi recalled. “I couldn’t even begin to say what her words meant to me.  I ended up breaking the old Tampa Rodeo’s Arena record that same year and took fourth out of 665 horses at the Old Smith Fort Rodeo with Sparky, who was 16 hands tall and weighed 1,250-pounds in his prime.”

As a do-it-yourself competitor, Patsi took pride in handling all the training herself. She always took her time to ensure there was a clear understanding of what the expectations were for both herself and her horses.

“I start off Pole Bending – that helps them learn their timing, strides and balance,” she explained, “It shows me their work ethic and how much pressure each horse needs to get the job done.”

Patsi always managed to stay in the top 10 or 15 of any circuit or rodeo association in which she competed and won enough saddles to fill several rooms.

In 1983 Patsi rode Go Again Bar Leo to a Congress Championship but she says she was just as proud when Flying Roanie, her blue roan gelding, won the Derby in Texas.

Rodeoing became a way of life for her, averaging 56 to 86 events a year between the 1970s and 2004, all the while painting and exhibiting her work at shows and contests across the United States. During one trip, she fell in love with and purchased a piece of

property in Trinidad, Colorado, spanning 71 acres, that would become her second residence and Patsi and Mommy would travel back and forth between Colorado and Georgia for most of the late 1990s.

“Mommy and I traveled so many miles and had the time of our lives,” Patsi said.

A few easel stands beside her horse trailer turned into a canopy tent and before she knew it the Patsi Wolfe Fine Art booth was a staple at venues like the Quarter Horse Congress in Columbus, Ohio; the National Western Stock Show in Denver, Colorado; the National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas, Nevada and many more.

Happy Meals and Buffalo Tears

It is not unusual for people ask Patsi to paint something specific. Her first commission came in 1977 when the owner of the Douglas, Georgia, McDonalds restaurant asked her to create original paintings of his five horses to hang in the dining room that he created resembling a western barn.

“He had stalls built around the tables and each stall had a window frame with one of my paintings displayed,” she said. “I was tickled to have this opportunity.”

But the encounter with a client that really sticks out in Patsi’s mind came at the Denver Stock Show back in the 1990s when a tall, strong, cattle rancher and his wife stopped by her booth to look at an original buffalo painting titled “The Old One.”

“He was very interested in that painting and he did compliment me nicely as they walked out of my booth,” she recalled. “It wasn’t quite an hour later, I noticed they were back and the rancher was actually standing right in front of the buffalo painting, staring.  When I approached him, he turned to me and said that he didn’t know what it was about that buffalo but he couldn’t stop thinking about the painting.”

The rancher even told Patsi that he never really liked buffalos that much.

“We stood there a few minutes enjoying the painting before they moved on to other booths,” Patsi recalled. “The next thing I knew the rancher’s wife returned alone and purchased the painting as a birthday gift for her husband.”

The following year, Patsi got the chance to visit with that couple when they returned to the Stock Show.

“The rancher came up to me with tears in his eyes, which of course made me cry,” she said. “He wanted me to know that he is now raising buffalos on their ranch in Texas.”

Every year there is a story just like that. Patsi is thought of as a rare gem amongst the sea of vendor booths. Her devoted customers see her as a show highlight and newcomers to her booth all seem to become fast friends with the artist.  She often makes appearances to showcase her paintings, gather commissioned pieces and sell her limited edition prints and originals at art shows, smaller rodeos and horse shows across the States and has been doing that for nearly four decades. 

A mother’s love

Year after year and mile after mile, where Patsi went, so did her “Mommy.”

Never was there a louder cheering section at a rodeo.

“I could tell exactly where she was sitting in the stands because I had a new cheering section at every rodeo,” Patsi laughed.

And at trade shows she would sing Patsi’s praises like only a mother could. Patsi recalls with fondness the story about when, at the age of 65, Mommy had Patsi teach her how to paint and several of her pieces were featured in the booths over the years. In fact, together they won the “Most Congenial Booth” award at the Denver Stock Show one year.

Mommy passed in 2011, at the age of 96, but her memories live on in Patsi’s heart.

“She could clock better than any judge out there,” she insisted. “She made friends wherever we went. If it wasn’t for her never-ending love and support, I don’t know where I’d be.  To this day, I still take Mommy’s favorite pair of sneakers on the road with me.  Those shoes are a wonderful reminder of the miles we traveled together chasing my dreams.  She will always be with me.”

Lost memories

One thing that makes moving forward without Mommy especially difficult for Patsi is the fact that her Colorado property has been burglarized and vandalized several times – each time, while she was on the road.

Valuable antiques, keepsakes, picture frames, original paintings and photo albums were all taken from her home and studio.

“They not only stole valuable things from me, but family memories, photos, my favorite painting my mother painted for me of two chipmunks that I will probably never see again,” she said. “What I don’t understand is why they felt the need to trash and trample on my everything, my whole world.  They damaged things, even those that held significant value and left me to find it all in pieces.”

Patsi has decided to list the property even though her Bat Masterson studio and home provide a lot of inspiration. She doesn’t feel safe there anymore. These days she spends her time at her farm in Georgia, painting and working toward a return to rodeo competition.

“I’ll miss the rolling hills and mountain views that surrounded me and all the beautiful sunsets and early morning rises that filled my windows,” she said.

Planning a come back

`Although Patsi has sold 10 or so saddles over the past few years, her tack room in Georgia is still full of the trophy saddles she kept from the Barrel career she built over half a century. She achieved Gold Card membership in Barrel Racing from the WPRA by earning over $1,000 in her first couple of rodeos and today she holds the Lifetime Gold Card for maintaining 25 plus years of active membership and having reached the age of 50.

It’s not something she’s ready to give up on just yet.

“I have two horses now, one is looking to be a great prospect, all I have to do is put the finishing touches on him,” she said. “I would really like to be in the alleys and arenas again.”

On the road again

But until then, Patsi keeps busy practicing, painting and traveling across the United States to show her work.

Until last year when the Covid-19 pandemic forced the cancellation of the Quarter Horse Congress, Patsi has spent all of her Octobers since 1987 in Columbus, Ohio. Old friends and past customers stop by and sit a spell, as they catch up with what the artist has been doing and what is new in her booth. But this year is different. She has been at home preparing for the NFR Finals in Las Vegas, Dec. 2-11. Then it’s off to the Denver Stock Show, which was cancelled again in 2021 and rescheduled for January. She gave some consideration to attending the Championship Show in Ocala, Florida, since it is just hours from her home, but said her plans just were not shaping up fast enough to make that happen.

“It was a hard choice to skip this year’s Congress,” she admitted. “Even though I’m sad and a little guilty about missing the chance to see my friends and clients and passing on the opportunity to try a new experience at the Championship Show, I will have my rodeo friends to visit and catch up with in Las Vegas and in Denver.”

Painting memories

Since Patsi understands that not everyone can afford one of her original pieces – her commissions are estimated at approximately $7 to $10 an inch –  she has come up with a way to share her art with everyone. She now places her small prints into clear plastic keychains. She sells them for $3 but admits she happily gives most of them away. She also paints on square tile coasters that are used for hot and cold drinks and are priced at $10.

Where ever she goes Regardless of where Patsi Wolfe hangs her paintings for display, she hopes her work widens the eye, gathers a new perspective and appreciation for heaven’s creatures and nature and makes anyone who glances at her art work feel a connection to all the blessings she has been fortunate to paint. You can connect with Patsi via her Patsi Wolfe Fine Art Facebook page.