A LATECOMER to woodcarving, Sandy Lemon has combined her love of horses and the Southwest with her artistic talents to carve bas reliefs of everything from equine events to gunfights in Tombstone. Lemon carves under her maiden name, Sandra Papish.

Horses And Southwest Themes
Dominate Art Of Sandy Lemon

By David Bowser

DEMING, N.M. — Sandy Lemon is a woman in love.

Growing up in the lush green rain forests of the Pacific Northwest, she questioned the sanity of moving to the arid Chihuahuan Desert of New Mexico, but as she has grown to know the area and the people, she has fallen in love with parts of it.

A horsewoman and wood carver, Lemon has fallen in love with the sunsets and the legends of New Mexico and Arizona.

"Tombstone, that's my kind of town," Lemon says. "I absolutely love the town of Tombstone."

She loves it so much, she's started a series of woodcarvings based on its colorful history.

In addition to the Arizona town just west of where she lives today, Lemon has fallen in love with sunsets on the rugged Florida Mountains southeast of her front door.

"We lived in Arizona for a while and then here," Lemon says. "I have never seen such beautiful sunsets in my life. Those mountains, when the sun is setting, will turn purple and blue. It is so beautiful."

Lemon was born in Everett, Wash., but grew up in Seattle. She graduated from high school in Seattle in 1964, and married a horse trainer when she was 21.

"We were married for about five months," she says, "when he got drafted into the service and went to Vietnam."

When her husband came back from Vietnam, they took over a feed store called Porter Feed in Kent, Wash.

"Three years to the day after we bought it, it burned to the ground," she says. "We were out of business real fast."

During those three years, however, they met a man who lived down the road from them, Harry Kieffer, the leading halter contender in the State of Washington at the time.

"When Harry came to a show," Lemon says, "you knew he had a winner in his trailer. This man could stand out in a field and look at a thousand horses, and he could pick out the horse that could go in the ring and win. That's the kind of eye he had. He owned some fabulous horses."

One day, Lemon was visiting his place, and he had three new foals.

"I wanted one of those babies," she says. "I wanted a registered Quarter horse because I'd been showing open shows with unregistered horses."

Lemon says she had gone as far as she could with them and she wanted to get into Quarter horses.

"I loved them," she says.

She and her husband went back, picked one out and named her Kieffer's Lassie.

"We didn't know what we had picked out, but she ended up being undefeated as a weanling. She won the Cow Palace in San Francisco."

As a yearling, she remained undefeated.

"As a two year-old, I got my first taste of getting beaten," Lemon says. Another competitor brought in a mare that had won one of the biggest shows in the United States.

"It was a mare named Tiffany Terino," Lemon recalls. "I'll never forget her name."

She says she was standing outside waiting to go in the gate for two year-olds.

"There's this big, gorgeous black mare standing outside the gate, waiting," Lemon says. "When they opened up the gate for two year-olds and this mare goes in, I went 'Ohmigod!'"

Lemon stood second behind that mare for a seemingly endless number of shows after that.

"We went to a big circuit show over at Spokane, Wash., and I finally beat her," Lemon says.

Their feed store soon grew into several western stores. It gave them access to horses and the money to show them.

"It afforded us the luxury of being able to buy good Quarter horses and compete with the professionals," Lemon says.

And competition in the Pacific Northwest is stiff.

"Washington, I'll tell you, is a top-notch state for quality horses," she says. "They lead a lot of different categories up there."

Lemon says there are a lot of Appaloosas and a lot of Arabs.

"The Quarter horses for a long time were big-dollar," she says. "The Arabs were big-dollar. The Appies were kind of so-so."

Then as the market changed, the Quarter horse market fell and the Arabs started going down. The Appaloosas started going up in value, and the Paints excelled.

"The Paint horses went crazy," she says. "It's a cycle. Everybody has their time."

Lemon comes by her love of horses naturally. Her great uncle, Woody Woodard, is largely credited with bring rodeo to the Northwest.

Now in his 90s, he's still active.

"He's the oldest living rodeo stock contractor," Lemon says. "He lives in Tonasket, Washington, right now."

Her great uncle on her mother's side of the family came from Arkansas to Washington in a covered wagon.

Lemon's love of horses can be traced back to him because he had a large ranch south of Fort Lewis.

"My dad would go hunting on his property in the fall," Lemon says.

She would go with him to her great uncle's ranch.

"I could hardly wait to go because there were always horses," she says. "I would get to go ride horses."

Her parents always thought she'd outgrow that phase of her life.

"Never happened," she smiles.

She earned her own money to buy her first horse.

"I babysat and saved my money," she says. "I bought my very first horse for $175."

It was a Paint gelding.

Lemon says the best advice she ever got was from Harry Kieffer when she started showing.

Kieffer told her to watch what the professionals did.

"You watch the pros, and you will learn," he told her.

That turned out to be good advice.

"It helped me out immensely," Lemon says.

She watched Kieffer for his halter ability.

"There are some great trainers in the State of Washington," she says. "Great trainers."

One of them, Lemon says, is Bobby Avala.

"Bobby Avala was one of them that I watched whole-heartedly," Lemon says. "I have known him since he was a little boy showing."

Now he is world famous.

"I knew him as a little tiny kid starting out riding," she says. "To me he is the absolute best. One time were in Spokane at Sunrise Arena and Bobby went in to a working cow class. He was running this cow down the wall and he went to turn it and somehow the cow collided with him and his horse."

She says Avala, the horse and the cow all went down. Avala came back up, stepped on the horse as it was getting up, and continued.

"Everybody in the audience was yelling and screaming," Lemon says. "We couldn't believe it. It was fantastic."

"Even if you weren't going to go show a horse, Bobby's worth going to a show and watching," she says.

She says the working cow classes to her are the most exciting classes in the Quarter horse shows.

"I love them."

But life changes, and about five years ago her life changed dramatically.

Her first marriage of 25 years had ended, and she met and married John Lemon.

They moved to the drier climes of the American Southwest for health reasons.

"The damp climate was killing him," she says. "He said, 'I'm going south to where the sun shines all the time.'"

She says it was a difficult decision.

Initially, they moved to Arizona. Eventually, they moved here to Deming.

While John shares her love of horses, he had never been around them that much. Now, he has his own, a Paint picked out by his wife. She also uses the Paint for the lessons that she gives.

She has a red dun, a registered Quarter horse, that she also uses for lessons.

"The red dun I bought from a rancher out here," she says. "He's actually a ranch horse."

She bought him from a local rancher named Bill Hatcher.

"He told me he had the horse for sale because the horse was not fast enough to work the cattle with the other horses, but the horse has a wonderful disposition," Lemon says. "I knew the moment that I rode him, this horse was going to work for a lesson horse. He's such a nice horse. He doesn't bite. He doesn't kick. He's just a nice horse."

His biggest fault, she laughs, is that he gets fat.

"I've never had a horse in my life that I feed so little to, and he stays so fat," Lemon says. "He's an easy keeper."

And it's not just Lemon who has a love of horses. She started her daughter Dawn showing when she was five years old.

"She showed Quarter horses all the way until she was 19," Lemon says. "She traveled all over with me. She loved it. It kept her out of trouble."

Between school activities and riding lessons, she didn't have time to get into trouble, Lemon says.

"She looked like a little peanut sitting on a horse when we started her out," Lemon says.

When her daughter started showing, Lemon would not let her look down from atop the horse.

"When they called for a lope, it's hard for a little tiny kid whose legs aren't very long to know whether they're on the correct lead or not," Lemon says. "My first husband would be at one end of the arena and I'd be at the other end. We taught her how to give the correct signals, but I told her, 'I don't want you looking down at the horse's shoulder. I want you to feel it.'"

Dawn would come around, and when they'd call for the lead, she'd look at her father or mother, and they'd signal quietly that she was on the right lead and could continue.

"I tell you, to me, if more people would get their kids into horses, there would be fewer problems," Lemon says. "It gives them a responsibility. They learn certain things from having that opportunity."

But just as her life changed with the birth of her daughter and her second marriage and a move to the Southwest, Lemon's life also changed with the death of her mother. It was then she found a new interest.

"I did not get into carving until 12 years ago when my mother passed away," Lemon says.

Her father had been carving for about four or five years.

"My mom and dad were like the greatest parents," Lemon says. "When I was a little kid, we traveled all over the country. We did everything together."

Her parents were married close to 45 years when her mother died.

"When she did, my dad just kind of stopped," Lemon says. "His world had come to an end."

He stopped carving and golfing.

"I went out," Lemon says. "I bought golf clubs. I learned to golf to get him back out on the course again."

She says she has always been involved in arts and crafts.

"I am probably the least talented in our family," she says. "My dad does the most beautiful artwork. My brother can sit down and draw anything."

Lemon asked her dad to teach her how to carve.

"We went around to different people," she said. "We picked up tools here and there."

Her first carving, of course, was of a horse's head.

"He showed me how to draw it out on the wood," Lemon says of her father. "Then he'd show me how to use the tools. Then he'd send me home."

She'd work on the carving, and then drive back to his house. He'd take his pencil and mark on the carving what needed to be changed.

"This is how I learned to carve," she said.

Shortly after she started, her father moved to Hawaii. She was left to figure the rest of it out for herself, but she had no shortage of subjects.

"I love the western stuff down here," she says. "I've gotten so interested. They have a wonderful library here in town. I'm in and out, checking out all the books I can read about Tombstone and Billy the Kid."

She says if she's going to do some carving on them, she wants to know all about them.

"I've got a lot of ideas in my head about the different carvings I want to do," she says. "I would like to do a layout of Tombstone, how it was in the 1880s, which will require a very large piece of wood, but I know in my mind how I want to do it."