Bonnie Henry : 'Parade Watch' a whimsical eyeful

That would be Dave Laughlin. A couple of decades ago, Laughlin, now 81, plopped the aforementioned folks, along with close to 50 others, into a painting titled "Parade Watch."

The result was a huge 7-by-16-foot depiction of spectators sprawling, squirming and fidgeting on the bleachers during a rodeo parade when the parades were still held downtown.

"I have hundreds of casual slides of people watching the parade," says Laughlin, who took the photos during the 1980s.

Some 54 spectators made the cut straight into his painting — including a few who did a little time-traveling, such as Geronimo and Remington.

And if you're really paying attention, says Laughlin, you'll notice that the Buffalo Soldier has a McDonald's coupon peeking out from his breast pocket.

"I had fun with it," says Laughlin. But the real joke, he adds, is that no one is looking at the parade.

Sure enough, everyone, himself included, is looking down, up or away from the parade supposedly passing in front.

For an entire summer he labored over his work — four panels in all — placing where each parade-goer would sit via pen and ink on graph paper.

"I transferred each person to the panel and completed each panel before doing the next," says Laughlin, who worked in acrylic with charcoal mixed in.

After finishing his painting, he donated it to the Tucson Convention Center, which was soliciting artwork. It has hung in the galleria of the center's exhibit hall ever since.

Every so often Laughlin, who suffered a stroke in 2001, would call up and check on his painting.

The last time he did so was just a few weeks ago. "I heard about the hotel going in and was wondering about my painting," says Laughlin.

Sure enough, when he called he was told that the painting, along with other works of art in the TCC galleria, would be coming down. Around the middle of September, work will begin on a new entrance to the east side of the exhibit hall, which will become the main entrance into the galleria once work begins next spring on the new downtown convention center hotel.

"We're trying to notify anyone who has anything here," says Tommy Obermaier, TCC deputy director.

Meanwhile, Laughlin was pondering what to do with his painting, whose four panels weigh about 80 pounds each.

Though he recovered enough from his stroke to resume teaching painting classes for a while at Tucson Parks and Recreation, Laughlin no longer paints. And he certainly didn't know what he would do with 320 pounds' worth of painting.

And then it hit him. Maybe the Tucson Rodeo Parade Museum could use it.

"We'd be delighted," was the answer he got from Bob Stewart, a member of the Rodeo Parade Committee. "We have an old hangar in the final stages of being reskinned," says Stewart. "It's going in there. It's the one water- and airtight building we own."

The museum reopens in early January, though tours can be arranged any time of year with advance notice. Visit online at www.tucsonrodeoparade.org for more information.

"Parade Watch" won't be the only Dave Laughlin painting on exhibit next year. In February, his "Military Hours," a print series of Buffalo Soldiers, will be on view in the children's room at the Quincie Douglas Branch Library.

"I've done another 40 paintings of Buffalo Soldiers," says Laughlin, whose paintings have been on exhibit at the state Capitol and in the library of his alma mater, Central Missouri State University.

That is where Laughlin got his formal training, as well as at the Institute of Design, though he learned his first techniques through a correspondence course.

And while he no longer paints — gardening is his new passion — his paintings are still around for us to enjoy. And, in the case of "Parade Watch," to bring a smile.

DID YOU KNOW

The Tucson Rodeo Parade moved from downtown to its present route along South Park Avenue and East Irvington Road in 1991.