Spirit of Tom Runnels lives on at the Cat Ranch

MARBLE HILL, Mo.

Artist/writer/sign painter/humorist/war veteran/philosopher/raconteur Tom Runnels died nearly two years ago at the cabin he built in the woods, a place he called the Cat Ranch. In life Runnels most artfully welded pieces of metal into outsized cowboys and Indians and longhorns. In death he is coaxing creativity from others, some of whom never knew him.

A year after Runnels' death, friends and family members established the Cat Ranch Art Guild and an art scholarship in his name. Now the guild, numbering 50 members, meets the second Sunday of every month, usually at the Cat Ranch itself, to discuss art and plan group exhibitions. They are painters, sculptors, potters, wood carvers, weavers and others not just from Bollinger County but from all over Southeast Missouri.

Runnels' studio is being transformed into a permanent gallery that will display his work. It is open to the public during the spring Mississippi River Valley Scenic Drive and the Fall Harvest Festival.

Sunday, well-known Jackson artist Herb Wickham stood before the group discussing the "built-up method" of painting, the technique artists like Rembrandt and Vermeer used. Afterward, Wickham recalled the day Runnels spoke to one of the art classes Wickham used to teach at Jackson High School. "He talked about why people make art. He had those kids' mouths open," Wickham said.

Runnels seems to have sparked creativity in many people. Jeanie Eddleman, Runnels' niece, is the president of the Cat Ranch Art Guild. She is an art teacher in the Zalma, Mo., schools and says knowing her uncle surely had something to do with it.

He came in one day when she was a young child, laid a fish on the table and began drawing it. She wanted to do what he was doing, so he got her a pad and pencil and she began making a drawing.

"I still have it," she said.

Leann Powers, another relative of Runnels', is becoming known as a metal sculptor in the Pacific Northwest.

At 11, Brandi Gromer is the youngest member of the Cat Ranch Art Guild. Her father, Gary, started sculpting metal after seeing Runnels' work.

Brandi paints wildlife scenes and says, "I'm really good at people."

She joined the guild to fulfill a need most artists have: "I didn't have anything to do with my stuff," she said.

Aaron Horrell, a Chaffee, Mo., painter who has won many awards for his mixed media art, will lead next month's discussion at the Cat Ranch Art Guild. He's going to show the members how to paint faces so they can man a booth at the SEMO District Fair.

If that sounds frivolous artistically, Horrell told the other artists that painting children's faces is one of the most rewarding things he has ever done. Tom Runnels might have said something that unconventional.

Her husband originally planned to become a college art professor but was drawn more to the rough-hewn life he loved and the work of Fredric Remington and Charles Russell, Sandy Runnels says. "He practically was born 100 years too late."

Runnels had the training -- various periods studying at the renowned Kansas City Art Institute -- and most say the talent to have succeeded in the wider world of art. The national magazine Southwest Art featured his work in 1984 issue. Collectors in Japan, Brazil, Germany and Australia own art by Runnels.

Sandy taught school early in their marriage and later became a travel agent in St. Louis. She encouraged him to pursue an art career, but that meant promoting himself and spending lots of time away from the Cat Ranch.

"He wanted to do it, but he didn't want what came with it," she said.

How the 70-acre Cat Ranch got its name is a mystery. Those who knew him know he was happiest doing whatever he wanted at the Cat Ranch.

That might include working on a sculpture. It also might mean stopping work to go fishing. He liked to trap and hunt game, too. He preferred strong coffee, an afternoon nap, wearing jeans with holes and sitting in the corner of a tavern with a beer making sketches of the other patrons.

"He wasn't worried too much about people's expectations," said Claude Vance, a pen-and-ink and pencil artist who had known Runnels since grade school.

Runnels claimed the need to eat inspired his sculptures, but creativity got him up in the morning and kept him awake at night. "Tom said art is not so much a talent as it is a desire," Vance recalled.

In 1982, many years before Runnels found out he had the brain cancer that paralyzed his left side and eventually killed him, he drew, painted and sculpted an image of an Indian fighting a bear. The bear is biting the left arm of the brave, who looks much like Tom Runnels did just before he died.

But the sculpture people associate with him most is "Horse and Rider," an astonishing 16-foot-tall piece that is almost kinetic. Both the rearing horse and the rider seem on the edge of toppling over. The work is positioned on the long lawn next to the lane leading to the cabin. People often drive part way into the lane just to take its picture.

Sandy has had many offers for the sculpture but would never sell it. Many people in the community have as many Runnels works as she does, she said. "What he didn't sell he gave away."

Runnels was the author of a couple of books and for many years before his death wrote and illustrated a column that appeared in many area newspapers. Called "Before TV," the column was a potpourri of anecdotes and ideas that didn't necessarily follow the rules of English grammar. He wasn't much interested in rules.

Runnels is buried on a peaceful knoll a few hundred yards above the cabin. His sculpture of an Indian warrior with a shield and dance stands over his grave. There's a bench and stool for anyone who wants to stop by and visit.

Friends and relatives who attended the visitation after his death at age 67 were greeted by this sign next to his coffin:

"I hate funrals," it read, "spesally this 'un."

sblackwell@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 182

RUNNELS-ISMS

"I don't take American Express or VISA and I don't plan to. I like to hear a few coins rattle in my ol' Levi's when I'm lucky enough to have some. Plastic don't rattle real good."

"I didn't come back here to be an artist. I came back to get away from being an artist, to make just enough money to fish, hunt, trap and keep myself in .22 shells. I came back with the intention of starving to death, only I didn't know it was going to take so long."

"You wait until you retire to do what you want to do. I'm doing what I want to do right now. What could be better?"

"I would like for the people who know me to be able to say that I have warmed myself by the fire of life."