IF MARLIN ROTACH AND DON WELLER LEARNED ANYTHING PUTTING TOGETHER THE BOOK AND EXHIBITION The River Flows, it’s that you have to go with the flow.
The two artists met and became fast friends in 2011 when their paintings were on view in the Western Art Show at Cheyenne Frontier Days. “What started out with a handshake in a rodeo’s photo pit has blossomed in so many ways,” says Weller. “We were both painting cowboys in watercolor, but Marlin is very photo-realistic and I’m very loose and fluid. We’re kind of the two extremes in the way people use watercolors—same subject, polar-opposite styles.”
That seemed like the basis for an interesting two-man show of their own work. While planning that exhibition — December 14 – April 24 at the Northeastern Nevada Museum in Elko — the duo began hatching another, even grander, groundbreaking project: a museum exhibition accompanied by a book that would explore Western history and Western art history all in one. The show would blend historical watercolors depicting the West with works by today’s top contemporary Western watercolorists.
