FLAME THE RODEO CLOWN PROVIDES ARTISTIC INSPIRATION
For once, Flame the rodeo clown isn’t dancing or cutting up. In profile, he seems thoughtful — maybe a bit noble.
That’s the moment Lucy Chen, a Katy teenager, captured in her oil painting, “The Entertainer.” In 2016, it broke a rodeo record when it sold for $220,000 at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo.
Chen’s work was the Reserve Grand Champion at the school art auction, an annual fundraiser that offers up paintings, drawings and mixed-media pieces by area high school students. Students submit work based on rodeo and western themes, and about 60 are selected for auction. A portion of the auction money goes directly to the winning students; the rest funds the rodeo’s education programs.
Chen’s work has been selected several years in a row, including when she was Reserve Grand Champion in 2014 as a high school freshman. Every year, she and the other student artists spend time with Flame, who entertains and chats them up before the auction. “He’s the one at the chute telling us, ‘You can do it.’ ”
Flame is actually Richard Gruen, a member of the rodeo speakers committee who dresses up in overalls and paints his face every year.
“I had no idea she was doing a painting,” Gruen said, and when he saw the piece, he was speechless for the first time in his rodeo clown career.
“I had no idea that doing what I’ve done the past 17 years — being a rodeo clown and having fun and trying to get kids to appreciate the rodeo — would have such an impact.”
For inspiration, Chen used a photo of Flame that her parents took at the 2015 auction. “I thought, ‘You know, he’s been at the auction all these years. I think it would be really cool to show my appreciation.’ ”