Terry Lee: Wildlife artist living the good life

HAYDEN — There is a grizzly bear in Terry Lee’s house that looks more than willing to lumber across the room and rip your arm off.

Across the way is a bull elephant. If you imagine just a little, you can feel the ground shake under its massive feet and hear it trumpet.

Both creatures are confined to oil paint on mega-size canvases, but are very convincing. Lee’s creations are alive.

He is living a dream. Lee is doing what he loves in the place he most prefers to be. The North Idaho native’s living room in Hayden is his painting studio. A separate outbuilding, which he refers to as the “Fun Zone,” serves as a classroom and sculpting studio.

“I just eat, drink and sleep art 24 hours a day,” said the 68-year-old father of three and grandfather of five. “It’s always on my mind and there’s always something to be done. There’s always a project that needs to be handled.”

Unlike many in his trade, Lee has made a career and a handsome living of it. He is no starving artist. His work sells for tens of thousands of dollars in select galleries in exclusive art centers like Jackson Hole, Wyo.; Park City, Utah; Bozeman, Mont.; and Santa Fe, N.M.

But it took him a while to get there.

He was born in Coeur d’Alene and lived at 11th and Front streets until he was 6.

His father, Orrin Lee, arrived in Coeur d’Alene in 1936 at age 29 after graduating from the University of Idaho and was hired as the dean of the fledgling and struggling Coeur d’Alene City College. He eliminated the school’s $7,000 debt, expanded the enrollment which was 15 students at the time, acquired 36 acres and developed a site plan for what became North Idaho Junior College and eventually North Idaho College.

In the 1950s his father bought 30 acres on Appleway just west of Ramsey Road, and Lee and his brother, Richard, became young ranch hands.

“We worked hard. When we got off the school bus we’d immediately report in,” Lee said. “Dad would direct us. Sometimes he’d have us dig a big, long ditch then fill it in. He made sure we were busy.

“We had cows to milk and horses to feed. I milked cows all the way through high school. As soon as I graduated and moved away to college, he sold the cows. He wasn’t raising cows. He was raising boys.”

“He just kept us busy all the time. It was a constant kind of a lifestyle. I’ve grown with that and adhered to that work ethic my whole life.”

In addition to the ranch, there was the drive-in theater to deal with. In 1948, Lee’s father and a partner developed the Showboat Drive-in, capable of accommodating 400 cars on the family property. Lee ran the snack bar and operated the projectors when he was 12, and picked up trash in the field the following morning. He still owns the commercial popcorn machine from the theater and treats his classroom students to the real thing.

Then retail entered his life. After serving in the Navy during World War II, Lee’s father returned home to find an abundance of available military surplus. The Lees traveled the Northwest gathering up inventory and opened Lee’s Outdoor Outfitter in the Showboat.

Lee’s young life was nose to the grindstone — retail and ranch during the day and the drive-in at night. But he also had an occasional chance to just be a kid.

“When we were done baling hay, we’d go to the Dike Road and hit the river to cool off,” he said. “I remember going to the Playland Pier quite often and riding on the swing that went over the water and the bumper cars and the carousel to grab the ring. I was so small I couldn’t reach the ring.”

He also remembers the Diamond Cup hydroplane races on Lake Coeur d’Alene and got caught up in the “riots.”

Jack Goodlander, his sister’s husband, raced back to the surplus store during the tear-gas-laced ruckus and returned with gas masks, which he sold for $10 apiece.

“Gotta take care of that retail opportunity,” Lee said.

Lee said he loved his years at Coeur d’Alene High School. He played the trumpet in the orchestra and marching band and performed in the World’s Fair in Seattle.

“I had the best lips in high school,” he said with a smile.

He graduated in 1967 and enrolled at Brigham Young University to study accounting. It didn’t take him long to realize that sitting behind a desk and pushing a pencil wasn’t in his future. So he took an elective in art and realized “this is really cool.”

He then did something rather illogical — enrolled in an advanced figure painting class.

“I knew nothing. I didn’t have any knowledge of painting,” he said. “But I was hooked. I was there with advanced graduate students and a phenomenal instructor. I saw the potential of what I liked and what I wanted. These people were doing it so well. It really gave me the drive and passion for it.”

He graduated with a degree in art and design and returned to Coeur d’Alene, where he rejoined the retail business, which had moved to a larger facility on the east side of Ramsey Road. In addition to surplus and hunting supplies, Lee created Divers West scuba store there as well as a ski shop.

Lee became a certified dive instructor and helped the Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office recover submerged vehicles and drowning victims. He also trained a KCSO dive team before it had a marine division.

During his 20 years at Lee’s Outdoor Outfitter, Lee met his wife, Janet Kington. They were married for a decade and had three boys.

The grandkids come to Coeur d’Alene each year for the Fourth of July fireworks and to paint and sculpt in grandpa’s Fun Zone.

The family retail business phased out in the 1980s, and Lee decided to take the plunge, to attempt making a living from what had been a passionate yet casual hobby. He opened a studio in the building still owned then by his sister, Deanna.

He was channeled into wildlife art by galleries that prefer specialty artists. And that’s just fine with him. He’s been to Africa, Alaska and many national parks to photograph his subjects.

“That’s been part of the fun of this job, the travel,” he said. “I’m a wildlife artist so I have to go get the research material.”

His latest project is a life-size bronze sculpture of a farmer to accompany the construction worker he did in McEuen Park. Eventually there will be four there, including a miner and a lumberjack, honoring Coeur d’Alene’s working class roots.

Lee said he is always striving to improve in his later-in-life career.

“To try to put something on a blank piece of canvas that has three-dimensional quality and strikes an emotion in somebody is just exciting to me,” he said. “People ask me what’s my favorite painting, and I say, 'The next one.'

“I enjoy it all. It’s a kick.”

• • •

Know a longtime local we should feature? Send your suggestions to Ric Clarke at clarke_ric@yahoo.com.