Carson supervisoral candidate Horton blends art and politics

(This is the third in a series of articles looking at the personal side of Carson City candidates.)

There's a large, empty space on the wall above the couch at the home of Verne and Brenda Horton that screams for a picture.

"Note the nail on the wall," said Brenda Horton. "It's for a future Verne Horton original. I'm waiting."

The empty wall for a man who is by profession a fine artist is something akin to the cobbler's children who have no shoes. Horton, a candidate for Carson City Ward 4 supervisor, sighed at his wife's request, and held out his arm.

"She has a wish list that long," he said. "She creates the projects, and I build them. After the election I can go back to the honey-do's."

Married for a year and a half, the couple have four children between them.

"He's an honest person," Brenda said. "He's an individual with a sense of humor, a caring person who cares for the community and his family. He's very generous."

Brenda has put her husband and his talents to use improving their house. He remodeled the kitchen so the cabinets and counters were suited better to her 6-foot height. He made her an armoire for the living room. He painted walls in their spa room to have a view of the surrounding mountains, as if there were no walls or surrounding houses to block the view. Construction on a maple hutch for the kitchen is on hold because of the work involved in running a campaign.

"She's been really accepting of this," Horton said of Brenda and the campaign. "She's campaigned 80 percent of the time alongside me."

Horton, 59, isn't trained in the art of furniture making. He learned the craft from a book.

"If you really want to, you can try most anything," he said. "Everybody is born with talent to do everything. Some things are encouraged, some are discouraged. I have been interested in it for years, and I have the motivation. The biggest thing is getting the guts to do a little research.

"It's something I like doing, and we benefit from it."

Brenda joked that when the couple married, rather than having two toasters and two mixers, they had two circular saws and two drills, all which has come in handy since Horton turned the garage into a woodworking shop.

"We need to build another garage," she mused.

Born and raised in Los Angeles, Horton said his art career "started with fat crayons." He went to Los Angeles State College where he earned a degree in pre-architecture. He later served three years in the Navy.

After leaving the Navy, he started looking for a job and ended up as a technical artist for North American Aviation. His charge: illustrating publicity pictures for the Apollo space program. After working on the Apollo program for three and a half years, he was lured into the corporate world as a regional manager for New York Life Insurance.

Horton said he did virtually no artwork in the 17 years he worked for the insurance company. He ended up earning another degree in insurance and finance from American College in Bryn Mawr, Penn., in 1978. He moved within the company 14 times in 17 years, living in Los Angeles, Hawaii, Arizona and San Francisco.

"Then I had an awareness that I had always wanted to be an artist," he said. "It seemed that if I were going to do it, I needed to just do it."

He quit his job and became a fine artist, or someone who "does art for art's sake."

"There is a joy to art," Horton said. "I paint for my pleasure and self-humor. The fact that someone else gets enjoyment from it is an additional benefit."

Horton's paintings and sculptures are truly those of a professional. He specializes in 1800s to 1930s Western Americana, but his love is steam era railroad art.

"You must have historical accuracy. The worst thing is to have somebody come by and say, 'That's not right," Horton said. "You can't get involved in the history of the railroad without getting to know a community."

It was his insistence on historical accuracy and love of railroads that brought him to Carson City. He spent a great deal of time at the State Railroad Museum, and one day about 17 years ago decided to leave Los Angeles for Carson City rather than travel between the two.

"I left L.A., and honestly I haven't been back," he said.

He worked briefly in Reno as an art director for an ad agency but left to go into business for himself as a commercial graphic artist. As commercial art changed, Horton did, too, learning how to use computers, with which he has a love-hate relationship, to design the logos he once did by hand. He's semi-retired now with a few clients who "won't let me quit."

He also designs flatware, and he's seen his designs at stores such as JC Penney, Pier I Imports and Macy's.

"I have a basic philosophy," Horton said. "Life is a series of experiences. The more you have, the better life is."

Horton said his art background transfers into his political life.

"It gives me a mindset to look beyond the obvious to find a creative solution," he said. "The biggest thing I would hope to bring to the board is the ability to foresee the opportunities and consequences of what we do.

"I've been fortunate to live in some pretty fancy places in my life, but I've chosen to live here. I have no desire to be anywhere else. I have a desire and a need to use whatever God-given talents I have to better the place I live in. It sounds like political rhetoric, but a week before the election, saying hello is taken as political rhetoric. I want the community to understand I have a serious commitment. I have time, and second only to my family, I will devote all the time I have to doing the job I deem necessary."