We’ve been working since 2005 to secure official status for the 4th Saturday in July as the National Day of the Cowboy; a day to celebrate cowboy culture and pioneer heritage. Currently, ten states have passed our bill permanently into law (WY,CA, NM, AZ, OK, OR, MS, KS, VA and TX). One of our main sources of funding for this ongoing effort is our commemorative Hatch poster series. We began making these traditional Americana style posters in 2005, using Hatch’s vintage woodblock art and text, but in 2006, we decided to ask artists, each from a different state, for original art which could be carved into a plate for our posters alone. Our first artist was Jennifer M. Ward of AZ. Artists who followed were Teal Blake – TX 2007, Zane Mead – NM 2008, Christina Holmes – CA 2009, Jim Harrison – FL 2010, the late Jo Mora 2011, Jim Clements – KS 2012, Don Weller – UT 2013, and Tyler Crow – OK 2014. Each of these artists has their own unique talent and style and together they have created a remarkable body of art for this organization.
Here we are, up to 2015 and we’re excited to tell you our artist this year is Alex MacAskill from Halifax, Canada. Alex is our first artist hailing from an international community. And, although he was born and raised in Halifax, he’s now a graphic artist on the staff at Hatch Show Print. He’s familiar with our whole series and has created a poster that fits perfectly in the collection. The colors this year are light blue and golden tan. The theme is “Stand Tall with your Reel Heroes.”
We hope you’ll consider helping us with the cost of getting our 2015 poster produced, and also, that you’ll want to become a collector of all the other National Day of the Cowboy Hatch posters as well. These are all limited edition posters, still hand-printed and hand-cranked on a letterpress. Hatch has been making posters this same way since 1879. No one in our organization is paid, but we do have significant ongoing operating expenses and we still have 40 states to round up on this trail drive! You can help us continue through our GoFundMe project or simply send an email to orders at nationaldayofthecowboy.com and we’ll put you on the list to reserve your poster. Orders for hand-signed posters must be paid for in advance as we only offer 50 signed by the artist. We expect to have the finished posters in-house toward the middle of June.
A big thank you to your Western Belle, Barb Richhart, and to singer/songwriter/author, Jon Chandler, for starring in our GoFundMe video, shot at the famous Buckhorn Exchange in Denver, Colorado.
