About the Artist

LaVone Hinton Luby

LaVone lives at the outskirts of a small town in Southwest Idaho, twenty miles east of the Oregon line and her beloved Malhuer County where she was born and raised. Through her kitchen window she can see the Owyhee Mountains separating two different ways of life; row crop farming and cattle ranching.

The ranch on Succor Creek, compressed by the Owyhee Mountains into a valley where she grew up, is only 70 miles away. But, sadly, there can be no going back. A new owner has burned the ranch house to the ground; all that remains is a hollow in the solid earth, a basement cluttered with leaves, twigs, and debris below the half-circle, concrete front step that once led to "Home".

In the midst of overgrowth and tall shade trees, the windmill still stands...as silent, now, as a memory of a time dead and gone.

Yet every now and then, as gently as the breeze that flutters the silver-backed leaves on those trees, the memory returns -- the memory of a time when she awoke to the lowing of cattle, the whinny of horses, or the distant sound of a coyote's cry; a time when deer foraged in the meadow and yard, and helped themselves to the haystacks during lean winter months; a time, when after fording the creek, it was five miles cross-country she rode a half Arabian mustang named Candy Kid to Rockville's one room schoolhouse. It was a time when hope and heart were young, when there was music in her soul and in the air.

LaVone played the violin at a country dance when she was nine years old. The following year, her father, John Hinton, purchased a dance hall piano at an auction for $75.00. She immediately gave up the violin and took up the piano, which to this day you will hear her play in but two keys, B-flat and E-flat, cords taught to her by a neighbor on the creek. In her early twenties, having no piano of her own, LaVone turned to the accordion. For the next quarter of a century she played and sang with western groups and performed in nightclubs, on radio, and television.

"Don't hand me sheet music," she says, admitting she can't read notes. "I wouldn't know what to do with it unless it has words to a tune that I've heard more than once." But with shear determination and an ear for music, raw and rare talent gives this lady the ability to pick up about any instrument, be it guitar, piano, or keyboard, and do just that. Play it two or three times and she'll pick it up, singing and playing in a country style that will make you pat your foot in rhythm or want to get out on the dance floor.

Her first pastel painting was completed when LaVone was age ten. It wasn't long before she started dabbling in oils (her first is pictured here.) At age thirteen, sick in bed with Rheumatic Fever and prohibited from riding the sagebrushed hills, her better days were spent pencil-sketching.

For several years LaVone Luby owned an art gallery and studio, teaching her self-taught artistic techniques to students in Idaho, Oregon, and Nevada. Judges at various exhibits around the country have awarded her original works of art numerous 1st Place and Grand Prize ribbons. Five of her originals are registered and listed by the American Artist's Guild; one even purchased by a presidential candidate and reproduced in full color on the cover of a hardbacked and superior quality coffee-table book. Luby's framed works decorate the halls and walls of not only her many studio patrons, but of her proud family, adding charm and a touch of class to their homes and serving as a warm invitation to all who enter.

With all this inherent talent -- and all these accomplishments to her credit -- LaVone smiles and says her greatest accomplishments in life have been: "...having had the good sense to marry a wonderful Irish husband, and giving birth to two beautiful daughters who've provided me with six grandchildren and ten great-grandchildren. And let us not forget my four wonderful step-children, six step-grandchildren and five step-great-grandchildren. How lucky can you get?"

We're told that by April Fools Day, 1998, LaVone's great-grandchildren will number an even dozen . . . and that's no joke. Wonder what little trick this lady will come with up with next.

Semiretired after open-heart surgery, LaVone still does contract freelance art work, plays her music, and finds time to enjoy her family.

by Carol Tallman Jones

Contact Information:
You can email LaVone by clicking on the pony express image below. She'd love to hear from you.

***LaVone's comment:***
Well, what can I say? If you want to read great things about yourself, ask one of your kids to write the story of your life. Bless their little buckaroo hearts. (grin)

NOTE UPDATE: April 1998
The number of my great-grandchildren has now reached that even dozen. Two beautiful baby boys, a joy to my heart, have now arrived alive and kicking. They are so cute!

To find out more about LaVone or view some of her original (copyrighted) art work, visit My World. There you find information on and photos of her family, the ranch where she grew up, and more.

My World