I Don't Know Where To Start...

About 1966 I met a guy that as life ran it's course, would become a source of amazement, and appreciation. I can't put my finger on the exact time of our first meeting but the earliest memory I have is of him showing up at a friends house with a strobe light. The music was changing from the California Car and Surf tunes to the British Invasion and there was a change in the air. "Hippies" were
not yet on the scene in the mid-west but were slowly spreading from the West. Free thinking was starting to be OK and there seemed to be something new around every corner. Steve was in the middle of the change. He was an Art Major at Pittsburg State University and a painter, silk screener and had a good hand for drawing. He had started collecting Civil War uniforms as well as Indian Artifacts. As the story rolls on, you can sort of stand back and ask, "What to hell was that" and see Steve leading the pack into a new adventure. The first real adventure I heard of was Steve, Larry Wooster, and Bill Russell deciding to drive Woosters' hearse out to California to check out the "Scene". Obviously there are a lot of small towns between Pittsburg and California, and seeing the interior of a Kansas licensed hearse rolling down the road with three guys with long hair, dressed in Confederate and Union uniforms screamed for every cop in every town to stop them and ask the obvious......."What's up"... The trip took a LOOOONNNGGG time.

Steve and I would cross paths as the years started to run together and we could always start the conversation where we had let off. It was just a great friendship. He was an expert on Indian art and early western pieces. He would buy and sell items as he found the market and seemed to fall into treasure troves of important items he could fine new owners for. At one time he had many original Frank Lloyd Wright drawings for sale. He traveled throughout the West and Midwest picking and selling as he traveled. Spending some time in Europe he made a small fortune selling worn Levi jeans...only Fenimore could have done that at the time.

About six months ago I hadn't heard from him in a while and called to see what he had going on. He had been sick, and diagnosed with type 2 diabetes....not good. Another call later and everything seemed under control. Reading the Carthage paper as I always do, I was shocked to see his Obituary.
His health had not been good.

Steve Fenimore was a good friend, a source of interesting adventures, and a mentor of sorts. He made his living through his vast knowledge of collectible art and artifacts, connections with collectors and the business sense necessary to make a buck. Because of Steve many pieces that could have been lost through time are in the hands of collectors that will protect them and pass them on to later generations.

As with most of my friends in the arts I traded a photograph for a drawing of Steves' produced in 1975......I'm going to miss the conversations and stories but at least I have a piece of his original art.
Happy Trails Steve...............