2025 Spring Homeland | Vic Payne, Western Sculptor  

The first sculpture Vic Payne ever sold was created in his cement truck while on breaks. He sold it to his boss for $1,500.  

“It was a lot of money in 1980,” Payne said. “We were making $3 an hour back then.”  

Within two years, he became a full-time western artist and forged a career around recreating the American West through clay. “Not without some difficulties,” he said. “There are always difficulties. It’s just about how you approach them.” 

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“It’s been a fantastic way to make a living.”  

Payne opened the doors to his latest studio and gallery in Meeteetse, Wyoming last summer. 

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Payne’s Final Gallery 

Meeteetse (pronounced muh-TEET-see) is not the typical place one expects to see an art gallery.  

“We’ve had people walk in here and go, ‘Wow, we did not expect to see this in Meeteetse. You see this kind of thing in Jackson Hole, or Santa Fe, but you don’t see this out in a little country town.’ But that’s kind of why we’re here. I mean, we’ve got to be somewhere,” Payne said.  

His sculptures encapsulating cowboys, Native Americans, and American wildlife are practically in situ.  

The boardwalk in front of the old Meeteetse Mercantile, which now serves as the Vic Payne Studio and Gallery, reminds one of a bygone era. Outside, a monumental bronze of Buffalo Bill Cody greets guests. The Cowboy Bar, where Butch Cassidy was once arrested, is the building next door. Amelia Earhart spent much time in Meeteetse and was in the process of building a cabin near the town at the time of her disappearance in 1937. She shopped for her goods at the Mercantile.  

The word “Meeteetse” is thought to be a Shoshone word for “meeting place” or “where chiefs meet.”  

Western history abounds, serving as the perfect inspiration for Payne’s work.  

“The Merc” 

The Meeteetse Mercantile was founded in 1898, and Vic and Angie Payne purchased three-quarters of the building in 2018. It had fallen into disrepair, but they saw its potential. After stepping away from their successful gallery in Jackson Hole and with a small ranch near Powell already calling them home, the Mercantile seemed like the perfect next chapter in their journey. 

“These mountains have been calling artists for a while,” he said, referring to the nearby Absaroka-Beartooth Mountain Range and the history of artists that trod the area before him. 

For the past seven years, Paynes have invested their own resources to restore “the Merc,” transforming it into a space that honors its past while giving it a present purpose. Angie’s passion for interior design brought new life to the historic building. They took the Mercantile down to its “bare bones” by rebuilding plumbing and electrical systems. They then added period-appropriate features, such as a rock fireplace, reproduction tin ceiling, and transformed the original stock shelves into bookshelves.  

The lower level is nearing completion, and the gallery showcases the work of eleven accomplished artists. 

Payne’s open studio offers a glimpse into his creative process. His daughter, Jordyn Payne Guthrie, has a painting studio overhead, bathed in natural light from an original overhead skylight.  

Behind the gallery and studio, in what used to be the meat storage room, Vic and Angie have slowly converted the space into a living quarters as a tribute to Amelia Earhart. The room still exhibits the original wooden doors through which wagons delivered shipments, and a commissioned painting of Amelia Earhart is planned to hang over the living area. They plan to rent it out by next summer. 

The upstairs is still in progress, said Angie. Currently a five-bedroom, one-bathroom space, Angie plans to convert it to three bedrooms and two bathrooms. Within the next two years, she plans to complete the project.  

Paynes boast fourteen grandchildren so far, and everything they do, including the Merc’s restoration, is done with them in mind. Vic said, “Our plan is to put this building into a trust where it’ll go to our grandkids and they’ll always have a place to come and get away or call home.” 

Born into It 

Vic Payne’s family was from Lincoln, New Mexico, the site of the Lincoln County War, Billy the Kid’s escape from jail, and his ultimate demise at the hands of Sheriff Pat Garrett.  

Payne had a fascination for The West since boyhood. 

“Times were different,” he said. “When I was a boy, colored TVs had just come out just a few years earlier. We didn’t have one. We had a library and we spent our time reading books and doing some little art.” 

His father had a good career in aviation for a time, but was constantly studying art in museums across the country with his kids in tow. 

One day, Payne said, “He just quit his job and said, ‘I’m going to go be an artist.'” The Paynes moved to a family ranch – still called the Payne Ranch to this day – to live. “We went through a lot of starving artist years, a lot of ’em, which were some of the great years. Being poor and broke and having to eat deer meat is not always a bad thing. I loved it.” 

Aviation was Payne’s chosen path, like his father, at first.  

“I never really thought I was going to be able to do [art] for a living. I was intending on flying myself and my life just took a different direction.” 

At age 16, he completed his first solo flight and spent most of his time working at airports with his sights set on an airline job. However, the Vietnam War had just ended, and aviation careers were taken upon the return of those pilots.  

“There was no sign of any worthwhile career in aviation at that time. So I was still not going to give it up, but I was driving a cement truck and I started sculpting.”  

“I kept sculpting real hard and learning. You’re learning so fast in the beginning. You get better and you learn technique and anatomy and design and stuff you don’t even know you’re learning. In about two years I quit my job and went full time sculpting. I got my bills paid off and my truck paid off and I got this free ranch to work on and it was really a struggle. You didn’t have money to go buy a six pack on a Friday night.” 

As his mastery grew, he sought new ways to showcase his art. In 1990, he began sculpting in front of audiences in a gallery in Santa Fe. The “works-in-progress” approach to selling sculptures was so successful the gallery sold four to five sculptures per day at roughly $5,000 apiece.  

“The cowboy guy that I was, I started making my first big money,” he said.  

He purchased his first gallery called Santa Fe Trails Fine Art in 1991.  

“We still have our original store there. Angie spends a lot of time down there, particularly in summers. And we will probably always have that gallery,” Payne said.  

Instead of carving out his career by going to art shows, Payne chose the path of the art gallery business. In the following years, the couple also opened galleries in Jackson Hole, Park City, Utah, and Cody, Wyoming. 

“But in doing so,” he said, “[I was] flying between the stores and always traveling, and we’re always in different places, so you get a little worn out because you’re literally talking to thousands of people every week.”  

In the past 25 years, among many other projects, Payne was commissioned to create monumental works for Cabela’s stores in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Texas, Illinois, and Louisiana.  

Payne was also working in various foundries, one of which was in Lander. During his numerous drives from Cody to Lander, the old Meeteetse Mercantile caught his eye.  

Building Community and a Future Foundry 

Paynes have chosen to slow down in Meeteetse, but only by one notch. 

“You do have to work hard at this, even at our age,” said Vic. 

He incurred a major setback in May, 2024 when the Caleco Foundry in Cody, Wyoming burned down. Payne said, “We lost $8 million and 10 years’ worth of work. When you’re planning on pulling back on the throttle… now we have to push a little harder, which is no big deal. You just try to do better.” 

They plan to buy property closer to Meeteetse and sell their ranch near Heart Mountain outside of Powell. With one daughter in town and family spread throughout the state of Wyoming, they are settling into the quiet life of the small town. 

“And that was just kind of our motive, just having a place where we can get a little grayer, get a little older, but still keep what we love around us.” 

In the meantime, they are making a concerted effort to serve the town and larger art community.  

Paynes enjoy hosting graduation parties in the gallery for high school seniors and making the locals feel welcome.  

Meeteetse residents are pleased with the building’s transformation. “What’s really cool about it is we have a lot of the locals come in, older folks that remember this place as a store. All of them miss it so bad. But they’re all so pleased to have this.”  

“That was really important for us to be able to not take away from Meeteetse, but just add on to the history of it,” Angie said.   

In the near future, Payne hopes to host workshops with master painters and sculptors. Additionally, they are planning to work with the city to create a large mural on the side of the building facing the street, depicting Amelia Earhart, Butch Cassidy, Buffalo Bill Cody, and Chief Washakie.  

An extension of the sidewalks and a display of sculptures to be viewed along the street is also in the works.  

Paynes will also help build a new art casting foundry in Meeteetse. Payne’s employee, Justin Gerlach, is the intended owner and manager, though all plans are in the early stages.  

Lost wax casting, the process of creating a bronze sculpture, has been dated back to 3,000 years before Christ, according to Payne. It consists of creating a series of molds and negatives, the final step of which includes pouring bronze into a mold at 2,100ºF then chipping away at the mold to reveal the sculpture underneath.  

Payne hopes to do tours of the foundry once completed. “We want this foundry to be really beautiful.” 

Though he claims to be unqualified, Payne foresees that the mountains surrounding Meeteetse will continue to call artists.  

“I don’t deserve to have a vision for Meeteetse. I’m too much of a newcomer. But I could see it moving into an art wave. When you have a nice foundry and monument sculpture studio, the artists come. So who knows what’ll happen down the road.”