If variety is the spice of life, then New Mexico-based painter Jeff Segler can certainly lay claim to having one of the most flavorful careers in the world of fine art. Although he earned a Bachelor of Fine Art degree from the University of Alabama in 1977, Segler travelled a long and winding career road before opening a studio just off Santa Fe’s Canyon Road and assuming the status of full-time artist more than two decades later.

Jeff Segler

The White Shirt Brigade
Oil
32″ By 32″
Granville Stuart owned the DHS Ranch east of the Judith Mountains in Montana. ‘We were known among the other cowpunchers as the White Shirt Brigade. Our outfit branded at the Fritz’s Run corral about three miles from the ranch, and the girls would ride over to watch us, and so we would get all shaved up, put on our best clothes, and ride our top horses. And you would see damn fools like Teddy Blue and Perk Burnett wrestling calves and cutting ears, blood flying in every direction, down on the ground in the dusty old corral, with a white-boiled shirt on and $12 California pants . . . . We were hoping that when the branding was over, we’d get to ride home with one of the girls. (We Pointed Them North, Teddy Blue Abbott, 1883.)

Jeff Segler

Nothing But Buffalo & Sky
Oil
28″ By 22″
In July 1540, Spanish explorer Francisco Vasquez Coronado, on an expedition into what is now believed to be northeastern Kansas, sent out a scouting party. Upon their return, they reported that they had seen nothing for 20 leagues but ‘buffalo and sky. (When Old Trails Were New by Blanche Chloe Grant, 1934.)