by Carol Middlekauff

When I married Chuck Middlekauff in 1972, I didn't know he would be a red-hot pop artist. He didn't know it either.

I did know we were both green-eyed left-handers, and I did know we would have the same initials. But I didn't know his heroes were the cowboys in the "Westerns" he watched as a kid—and later the Beatles and Beach Boys. I didn't know he would spend a good part of his hours cruising in—or lying under—old cars. I didn't know he played guitar. I didn't know he would be a weightlifter, that he would spend time in jail, or that he had a serious case of "road rash."

I did know that, after four Navy years, while he mastered drafting school, he was the part-time mail clerk at the insurance company where I was a file clerk. And I did know I fell madly in love with him when our fingers touched as he handed me the mail.

Five months later, we declared our vows. And I began to know about the rest.

Chuck did spend some years as a draftsman. Then, struggling to find a better career path at Metropolitan State College in Denver, he took an elective drawing course. Encouraged by collecting a few "perfect tens" his professor said he never gave, Chuck declared a major in fine art. Although he discovered he could draw and paint, I heard him grumble at his graduation, "How will I get a real job with this B.A. in Fine Art?"

I agreed he should enroll at the Colorado Institute of Art, where he aced the International Design Conference poster competition in Aspen and graduated with honors. Then, expecting his imaginative portfolio to earn him a spot at a top advertising agency, designing Coca-Cola campaigns and other fun stuff, instead, he discovered that those "real jobs" mostly meant executing others' ideas. He loved/hated it for four years in Denver and Los Angeles and eventually threw in the towel to take a crack at real art.

Sorting out what he would paint meant spending a few years relentlessly examining art and artists and narrowing it down to watercolors and acrylics. His subjects? Cowboys, the West, and the all-American kitsch he grew up with.

Since 1992, Chuck's distinctive pop art interpretations of the West (which regularly reflect his affinity for juxtaposition, advertising concepts, and inspirations from the likes of Andy Warhol, Billy Schenck, Nelson Boren, and Jackson Pollack) have appeared in the finest Western galleries in America. These days, you'll find his work in Mountain Trails Galleries (Jackson Hole, Wyo., Bozeman, Mont., and Park City, Utah.) and Sorrel Sky Galleries (Durango, Colo., and Santa Fe, N.M.).

But what about the old cars, weights, travel, guitar, and jail? I'm getting to that.

His first old car was a yellow and white 1959 Nash Metropolitan. That's right, the tiny bathtub toy of a car that found fame in the 50's song "Beep, Beep." Then, it was a series of C3 Corvettes. His current classic is a 1973 Corvette Stingray. I mostly see the bright yellow tail end of it driving away for the day. Or his feet sticking out from under it. When I ask about the grease under his fingernails, he says, "Oh, that'll come off when I wash my hair." And it does.

Chuck's electric guitar is a "Brown Sunburst" Fender. Once in a while, he gets it out and plays 50s and 60s rock-and-roll songs (some from his time in a high school garage band and others he's picked out by ear from old records). Those same tunes usually fill the studio, intensifying his energy while he's painting.

At 76, he still lifts those weights. When he's not applying acrylics directly on canvas, those iron plates also come in handy for pressing the paper of his watercolor paintings onto canvases (with glue between and then varnish protection—no frames, no glass).

And what about jail? He wasn't sentenced to jail, but we both regularly share the forgiveness of Jesus behind those walls with the Bill Glass prison ministries.

His "road rash" means we've driven close to two million miles crisscrossing America in a various Oldsmobile or Buick. He's still stuffing cars with paintings to deliver to galleries and collectors' homes (he loves meeting his collectors), traveling to prison events, and just for fun, so we're on the road a lot.

And sometimes Chuck even paints.

Fifty-two years later, I still don't know everything about this husband of mine.

Chuck's paintings are available through Mountain Trails Gallery in Jackson Hole (mtntrails.net) or Sorrel Sky Galleries in Durango, New York, and Santa Fe (sorrelsky.com).  Read more about the artist at chuckmiddlekauff.com.