John Kittleson

A sculptor, painter, ceramist and leather carver, Kittleson was a self taught artist who was born on a dirt farm in Arlington, South Dakota. As a child, John's earliest exposure to sculpture was playing with wood toys hand-carved by his father. He traveled to California and then to the Black Hills where he worked as a horse trainer and bronc rider. John and his wife settled in Cheyenne, Wyoming, where he worked as a carpenter and dabbled in painting and wood carving while working as a saddlemaker. In 1965, he sent in slides of his carvings to the Cowboy Artists of America and became one of the first fifteen founding members. For his woodcarving, he would buy an entire tree, usually a linden tree, and let it sit for several years so that it "cured". Then he had the wood kiln dried and went to work on it with a chisel.

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