Framing Norman A. Browne

Our family first met the Brownes (Norm and Pam) in 1969 at the futuristically named Telstar Apartments in Flagstaff Arizona. My family had just moved there from Dallas Texas and I was just out of first grade. Ourselves and the Brownes were at these apartment for the same reason. There was a housing shortage at the time in Flagstaff and both families had moved to Flagstaff but could not buy a house right away. Norm came to teach Art at Northern Arizona University and my dad came to run the marketing department at Southern Union Gas.

This meeting though random was fortuitous and my father would retain a long and active friendship with Norm and Pam.

Norm was a talented artist and avid outdoorsman. My father and mother both enjoyed the outdoors as well. Being only 7 at the time we met I don’t have many solid recollections. 

This was the basis of my father’s friendship and my family’s as well. Norman was a fly fisherman and he taught my father and showed him his favourite place Kinder Crossing on Clear Creek on the Mogollian Rim. We would hike there often with the Brownes or on our own. This was really the place I learned to love fishing, especially on rivers. It was a magical place for my brother and I where we could go exploring and fishing often when our parents were upstream or downstream trying to catch fish. Looking for frogs, skipping stones, swimming were all things we could enjoy.

Here I learned from my dad and Norm where to cast my spinner. The undercut banks where trout would lurk in the heat of the mid-day sun. Clear Creek consisted of long pools divided by short sets of rapids or riffles.  I learned the fish would often wait below these rapids and riffles with a fresh supply of oxygen and insects floating down to eat. My parents would flyfish and I would spin cast with a trusty Mepps spinner. We rarely got skunked. 

Residents of Arizona today would probably not recoginze the place from the way it was in the early ‘70s. Despite the numerous times we went there we rarely saw people. The road there was not well marked if at all. A steep trail descended into the canyon. I went by there again probably 25 years ago and the roads were much improved and the area seemed much more travelled. 

In the 1970s there were far fewer people in the state and the lack of social media meant you only heard about these places by word of mouth like we did. The fish we caught were all fish that had not been stocked by the Game and Fish department. They were fun to catch though ran small as the stream was small. There were some good size brown trout to be had as well as rainbow trout. 

I recall Norm as very kind and gentle man and one who got along with children very well as he didn’t talk down to them. At the time he was doing very colourful paintings I would call biological. They were full of the complex detail one might see under a microscope. He even gifted my brother and I each a red and blue example of these. It is to my shame that I do no know where mine got misplaced over the years. 

When we lived in Flagstaff we did not have a lot of money but my mother was a great lover of art. She really liked some of Norm’s nature paintings. Eventually she bought a large painting of his that hung in our living room. It was a simple scene of grasses in a meadow on what seemed to be the edge of a wood. My dad still has it to this day. 

My family had a pet dog called Harry that was a Japanese Akita. We brought him from Dallas when we moved to Arizona. Harry had the habit of chasing the wildlife in the forest behind our house. The only thing he could catch however were skunks which he did numerous times. Despite numerous baths in tomato juice he always seemed to smell faintly of skunk. Perhaps this is why I am never repelled by skunk the way others are except when it is very strong. 

Harry passed away and Norm make a little sketch of him in 1970 and gave it to the family. I have this on my wall today. 

Hari-Hari as framed

Detail of Hari-Hari

I have  another Norman Browne picture as well. It is a perfectly executed Wren in a round gold frame. It was done in ‘pencil on gesso under wax’ as Norm has written on the back. 

Wren

The years passed and at some point the Brownes moved eventually making their way to Kerrville Texas. Things changed for us, my mother passed and my father moved to southern Arizona and then western Colorado. During that time my dad and Norm kept in touch and Norm often vacationed in the inter-mountain west and they would meet up to go fishing together sharing their favorite places.

Norm began at some point to make some fish portraits often of the type he liked to catch. I am sure these were popular in the galleries of the West where sportsman might frequent. My dad purchased a number of these and has them in his house. He also gave me some limited edition prints. The originals are beautiful combining paint in bright colours detailed in the intricate way I would expect of Norm as well as some gold leaf to brighten them. They really are lovely to behold and capture the beauty and subtly of the fish.

Here is the information the gallery enclosed about Norman. 

So have decided to take some of my recent framing experience and finally get these out of their envelopes and onto the walls. I hand-made frames in the same fashion as I have before. Simple pine with black fronts and bright work reveal on the edges. I had the mattes cut from an online shop and mated them up as I show below. They turned out really well. The sunfish frame seems a little off balance on the horizontal but I have a spare frame that is wider and I will get a matte cut to fit that one. Here they are... A fitting remembrance of a wonderful and talented man.