When some artists set out to do a
painting, they hire a model. When Creswell artist Don Prechtel wants
to visualize one of the scenes he paints, he may need a cast of
thousands, including soldiers, horses and 19th century cannons.
Prechtel, who is nationally known for his realistic Western scenes
and Civil War battle paintings, can't exactly fit an entire cavalry
charge into his home studio, spacious though it is. Instead he has
become, you might say, a camp follower on the trail of a
late-20th-century phenomenon: large-scale re-enactments of bloody
Civil War battles.
Earlier last summer, he was one of three dozen artists and photographers who ponied up $350 each to attend an event called "The Artist's Ride," held on a ranch in South Dakota with dozens of cowboys and Indians on horseback. Prechtel took 100 rolls of film with him. "We set up all these scenarios and played director," he says. "They'd do just about anything you told them to. It was great."
Born in Los Angeles, Prechtel has lived in Oregon since 1942. Though he began his career as an optician in Eugene, Prechtel had been drawing and painting since he was a child, always favoring the realistic, illustrative style of N.C. Wyeth. "I like to paint story-telling paintings," he says. "I used to just paint landscapes. But you've got to get something in there that grabs you. And I think people want to know about their history." When he began selling his own paintings in places like the then-posh Eugene Hotel, Prechtel was convinced he was destined to be an artist. All he needed, at that point, was a regular income. Almost miraculously, he found one through the generosity of a private benefactor. Eugene lawyer John Jaqua, who had bought one of Prechtel's early paintings, offered the young artist a paycheck every month for three years while he was getting himself established.
The debt has never been forgotten. "I called him back recently," Prechtel says of his long-ago patron. "I said, 'John, I can pay that money back now.' He said he didn't want the money. 'I want you to go out and do the same thing for someone else,' he said." So Prechtel is paying off his debt by teaching free drawing and painting classes to children in Creswell.