Written By Megin Potter
Photos provided by Spa Art (Unless Noted)
All in Good Time
Bradley Chance Hays is a Western vanguard showman frequenting places where people herd. Throwing himself into the fray, he pulls out vibrant gems, transforming each experience into a stroke of color on his original canvases.
Professional tie-down calf-roper and classically trained expressionist painter, Bradley Chance Hays’ inked outlines, in oil, pastel, and watercolor, are painted plein air, as he takes in their inspiration. By using unexpected media, a splash of coffee, or by cutting off the ends of Uni-ball gel pens and draining them of their magenta and turquoise hues (a process he initiated while growing up in Bristow, Oklahoma among a uniquely creative family), Chance lassos fate by the horns.
As a young’un, Chance’s mom, Melissa Jan Hays, a greeting card artist, elementary and middle school art teacher, committed impulsively experimental acts, like throwing salt onto her canvas, while simultaneously frying up spam and eggs for breakfast. Chance’s dad, a professional rodeo cowboy, taught him how to ride the range on horseback. Chance ate up all his upbringing and exhibits both sides through brilliant LeRoy Neiman-like paintings that capture nomadic man at his leisure.
Chance’s grandmother, a Cherokee ceramicist and quilter, impressed upon him the value of artistic endeavors by staying up all night to lay out elaborate squares of quilting fabric. Continuing her example, Chance stays true to himself today, and oddly enough, lives the life of honesty and trust that he says he does, experiencing how “less is more, and more is less.”
A pinnacle moment in Chance’s artistic life came at age 12 when he was selected to illustrate the book “Dragonfly” by a publishing company specializing in books for children, by children.
That boy and his dragon then went to Oklahoma Panhandle State University, graduated from Oklahoma State University, and earned a master’s in fine arts from West Texas A & M University. Chance took to Montana’s oil and cattle country, wrangling 5,000 cow ranch herds while becoming “one of the most well-respected western artists of the times,” according to Cowboys & Indians Magazine, and selling his work to prominent Thoroughbred owners and breeders including Marc Holliday; Chairman of the New York Racing Association’s (NYRA) Board of Directors.
A Mountain Man in the Making
After art school, Chance took to the road, traveling coast to coast painting live at the nation’s horse capitals, Manhattan jockey clubs, LA hotspots, and luxury resorts including Canada’s Fairmont Tremblant Hotel.
Saratoga’s primely-positioned platform for both painting and roping lured Chance into cultivating a small herd of cows, a pack of eight dogs, and nine horses while alternating between his Stony Creek and Owl’s Head camps, simultaneously capturing the vastness of the West and the Adirondack Mountains.
“This is horse country. You have all kinds of room to roam, and that changes the game,” he said.
From Underdog to Top Dog
As an underdog, Chance traveled the rodeo circuit out west, along the East Coast, from Canada to Florida, emerging from “The Big Show” as a tie-down calf roping national champion. In the 2020s, Bradley was scooped up by brands including Rolex and Wrangler (and featured in Wrangler’s “The Art of a Cowboy” campaign, an artisan showcase spotlighting Western art aesthetics, traditional horsemanship, and the rugged craft of working with horses, cattle, and dogs).
Now with Lake George’s Painted Pony Rodeo, Chance’s paintings have evolved into dynamic explosions of color that have been featured in Spa Fine Art Gallery’s rotation of works on display for nearly a decade. Chance also revels in live painting on Broadway, acting as a bridge to the precious, unseen source pushing the public forth to experience his work, and helping to demystify art for the young and old alike, he said.
“I believe in people, respect all people, and think they know that” said Chance, who invites his dog, Jengo, to jump up on his chest before giving him a prime spot in the shade. “Dogs and horses do all the talking for us,” he says.
Chance lets his watercolors drip some before catching them, experimenting with negative spaces, and allowing the viewer to fill in what he leaves out with their own imagination, transforming them from observers to participants in the piece. “You are who you are when no one is watching” he quotes on one of his original works above his distinctive signature – which travels along an invisible line, like his eyes do, as they trail off into the horizon.
“It’s all part of the show,” he explains before moving his logo-emblazoned pickup truck for the second time in an hour to get a prime parking space right in front of the gallery.
Original commissions are completed in one to six months. To see more of his work, follow @bradleychancehaysofficial on Instagram, and visit Spa Fine Art, 376 Broadway in Saratoga Springs or online at spafineart.com.
