Rodeo Artist

Claudia Fletcher: A Clovis Treasure

Excerpted from an article by Ethel Jamfrey, friend and fellow equine artist.

This year the Clovis Rodeo Board is proud to choose to feature 2 long time Clovis Rodeo Bullfighters Tim O’Conner and Eric Layton on the 2023 Clovis Rodeo Poster.  Now retired, both were regarded as two of the best bullfighters around and great friends of the Clovis Rodeo. Bullfighters work as a team and put themselves right into the path of the bull with the goal to distract the bull while the rider gets to safety without any harm to the bull. 

Claudia shared that she looks forward every year to working with the Rodeo Association on the annual poster. “I am honored to be a CRA member, and feel fortunate that I have met and become friends with so many good, kind, down-to-earth people.”   CRA President Ron Dunbar says, in admiration of her work, “We provide Claudia with a photo or idea, and she always puts her stamp of what is rodeo into it.  She’s a true, long-time friend of the Clovis Rodeo and part of the Clovis Rodeo tradition. We are so glad to have Claudia as part of our Rodeo family.”

109th Annual Clovis Rodeo Poster

Past Clovis Rodeo Posters

2019

2016

Claudia Fletcher: A Clovis Treasure

Excerpted from an article by Ethel Jamfrey, friend and fellow equine artist.

Since 1992 Claudia Fletcher has created the wonderful watercolor paintings that have presented the image of Clovis for the Clovis Rodeo Association (CRA).  Her masterful understanding of the anatomy and movement of the horses, bulls, and riders she portrays is the heart of the phenomenal impact of the annual posters she has produced over the years.  As it was stated in a feature article in US Art, April 1995 . . ..”her paintings and drawings are a curious balance of precision and expressive movement, as if she had cut the ceaseless energy of a rodeo from the dust swirling around its’ participants.”

CRA President Ron Dunbar says, in admiration of her work, “We provide Claudia with a photo or idea, and she always puts the stamp of what is rodeo into it.  She’s a long-time friend of the Clovis Rodeo and part of the tradition.” 

In past years Claudia was also commissioned to do a signed and numbered limited-edition print for the National Reining Cow Horse Association’s Snaffle Bit Futurity 25th Anniversary and contracted to provide artwork for the Grand National Rodeo Horse and Stock Show.  Her work has been featured in national publications including Riding Magazine, Equine Images, as well as in US Art.

Claudia’s a natural artist when it comes to animals.  As a child her first drawings were of horses, and even these early paintings had style and action.  Growing up on a cotton and alfalfa farm in Madera, she longed for a horse.  She studied them and recorded the detail and attributes of each individual in her drawings.  Her teachers noticed her ability and encouraged her work.  She even had her first bulletin board show in elementary school.  At Madera High School Claudia studied with Keinz Kusel who introduced her to serious art studies and a basic background in the arts.  Claudia continued her studies in art at the Immaculate Heart Women’s College in Los Angeles under the direction of Sister Mary Corita and others.  She has continued her studies with noted artists Pat Hunter, Joan McIntyre, Booth Malone and Jerome Grimmer.

Since her teens, she’s been doing portraits of people and their pets, drawing in pencil and pastels, painting in watercolor and oils, and acrylics.  Her wide breadth of art experience allows her to be an extremely versatile artist.  In the 1970’s she began working in the automotive finishing and decorating business where she created and painted pictures as well as custom lettering on motorcycles, boards and other vehicles.  This artwork was feature in Custom Chopper Magazine several times.

Claudia was also an illustrator for Valley Decorating Company.  As Tom Wooley, Art Director for VDC stated, “Claudia can draw any subject with style and realism, capturing the essence of the thing and imbuing a special quality all her own.”

In the late 1980’s she began painting wall murals.  One of the most impressive pieces is in the town of Exeter.  “Golden Harvest” was completed in 2000.  It is on a 22×60’ wall where Claudia brough back to life a 24-horse hitch pulling a grain thresher.  Working from a photograph taken of a harvesting team in the nearby Mehrten Valley, Claudia painted this memory of the dusty work that shows the human and horse strength it took to harvest wheat in 1915.

In Kerman’s Historic Gateway mural, she painted a steamboat carrying passengers on the San Joaquin River.  For the Kerman Cultural Arts Council she created life-size figures of the blacksmith, a child, and horse across the front of the historical blacksmith’s barn, which covers a 40-foot span.  Other murals can be seen in Clovis in the BS Coffee Shop, Toledo’s Mexican Restaurant, Old Town Station, First American Title Company and San Joaquin College of Law.

In 2014, she illustrated a book about a well-known local personality: “Great American Cowboy Wilbur Plaugher: My Home Town Hero” by Dot JB Powell.

Claudia has been active in the Clovis Chamber of Commerce and was honored in 2004 with the Spirit of Clovis Award at the Hall of Fame dinner, to acknowledge her contributions to the City of Clovis.  Participating in Clovis Art Guild shows and activities, she received the “Best of Show” award in 2011 at the CAG Veteran’s Shown with her painting, “Remembering.”  Most recently she worked live on stage at the Rotary Crab Feed where the drawing was auctioned off for a fundraiser.

Across the country, Claudia is known for her western paintings and drawings.  She continues to create portraits of people, pets, horses, and action scenes from rodeo and working horses in any endeavor in the media of pastels, pencil, pen and ink, acrylics and watercolor.

Prints of the rodeo poster and some previous year’s posters are available for sale at the rodeo ticket office at the Clovis Rodeo grounds.