He looked younger than his photographs, wiry, medium height, dark hair, trim beard, blue workshirt, faded jeans, sort of relaxed, like a Sunday sailor. But there was a touch of gray to his beard, a touch of authority, almost brusqueness to his manner. As Frank McCarthy stepped from his driveway to open his Sedona studio for his visitor, he glanced at his watch.

Friends had warned, "He's a workaholic." The studio was apparently enlarged from the original garage of the house. It was office-efficient – worktables, drawing board, easels – and like Thoreau, another Easterner who treasured privacy, McCarthy had but two chairs, one for himself, one for a friend. His other companions were silent. They lined the walls, sat on easels, leaned against the table: U.S. 5th Cavalry surprised by hostile fire, Indians burning a relay station, a stagecoach fording an icy-clear stream.

"I try to put a story in motion," McCarthy said.

Motion?

This was complicated action, set by the brush of a master against a stark fist of red rock, under snow-wrapped mountains, on grassy plateaus, in piney woods, on a moonlit desert. Being surrounded by them was like being swept into all the landscapes of the early West, into all the classic moments of American mythology. Excitement exploded. Unneeded were the careful questions to discover the why of his popularity. Words tumbled like a rockslide.

And when the explosion settled, there was Frank McCarthy no longer clock-watching, inviting his visitor to use that other chair, and talking. He talked about his increasing research, about his long artistic ties with the West, about working vacations, and using his camera to document light – "I really don't paint green trees. I paint how they look at that time of day."

Finally he spoke of his method of working. "Some paintings start with landscape ideas, some with action. I begin with small abstract designs, trying to figure a pattern, the time of day, the balance of light and dark."

"But it's change, change, change. In this one," he picked up an Indian scene, "I went from 14 or 15 Indians milling around on a great rock ledge to that single figure in the foreground, later adding secondary figures. And the background! I must have had five or more background changes in this painting."

"Some paintings sit around for months before I decide everything in the design works. That's the second most important part of my paintings, the actual design in dark and light patterns."

What's the first?

"The feeling. It doesn't look like it because after a while the emotion develops into realistic paintings. But the feeling comes first, whether the painting is still or has a little bit of movement or a wild tearing around of horses. I've got to have the excitement first and I work to keep it."

And of such stuff are waking dreams made.

(This article originally appeared in "Arizona Highways", Vol. 57, No. 5, May 1981).

More articles:

August 1950 - "Introducing A New Junior Literary Guild Artist"
May 27, 1955 - "Collier's Credits" (by Jerome Beatty, Jr.)
circa 1972 - "With A Paint Brush Instead Of A Gun"
1974 - "Frank C. McCarthy" (by Frank C. McCarthy)
October 1976 - "Frank C. McCarthy" (by James K. Howard)
May 1981 - "A Visit With Frank McCarthy" (by Kay Mayer)
July 1981 - "Frank C. McCarthy" (by Piet Schreuders)
June 10, 1982 - "Cowboy Art" (by Stewart McBride)
July 1983 - "The Verde Valley - A Personal Profile" (by Frank Brothers)
July 1989 - "The 007' Files: Selling Bond" (by Stephen Rebello)
November 1989 - "Illustrators - Part 1: Movie Posters" (by Franz L. Brown)
October 17, 1990 - "McCarthy Paints For Visual Impact" (by Gail Arnold)
2001 - "The Illustrator in America, 1860-2000" (by Walt Reed)