As a boy Don Weller drew horses and cowboys when he wasn’t exploring with his horse. He rode along the Palouse river or over the rolling hills that surrounded his childhood home near Pullman, Washington. His passions were horses and art. He sold some cartoons to Western Horseman magazine, and roped calves in high school, college and at amateur rodeos in eastern Washington, Oregon, and northern Idaho.

    Graduating from Washington State University with a degree in Fine Art, he sold his horses and moved to Los Angeles where he spent decades doing graphic design and illustration. His work appeared on record covers, posters, in advertisements, and on hundreds of magazine pages. He did covers for Time Magazine, TV Guide, and illustrated stories in Sports Illustrated, Boys Life, Readers Digest and many others. He did posters for the Hollywood Bowl, The National Football League, The National Cutting Horse Association, The Rose Bowl, and the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. He illustrated three children’s books and published a coffee table book about cutting horses, Pride in the Dust, which he illustrated and photographed. He created five stamps for the United States Post Office.

    Along with doing illustration and graphic design he taught school, part time, first at UCLA, and for a decade at the Art Center School in Pasadena.

    Finally Don realized he had seen all the cement and palm trees he could stand. Don and his wife, Cha Cha, moved to Utah, near the skiing at Park City. A book project for the NCHA introduced him to a neighbor who trained cutting horses. The west of his childhood came flooding back. It was still there, just as he’d left it. That book project took him to Texas and Arizona, California and Montana. He was in arenas and on ranches. He began to wonder what it would be like to ride those cutting horses. It wasn’t long before he found out. And he’s been addicted ever since.

    Now they live in rural Oakley, Utah, with Buster, the border collie, two cats, cattle and five horses who are bred to cut. Don creates western paintings and rides and competes on the cutting horses.
His work is represented by several galleries and art shows. Recent painting awards include Best of Show: Bountiful Davis Art Center, Best Watercolor: Cheyenne Frontier Days Old West Museum. And Best Watercolor, Best New Artist, and The Patrons Award: Bosque Conservatory Art Council Show.