Third Life Period: The Mature Artist   (age 25-49;  23 years, 1889-1912)

First phase: Life ascending (ten years)

Paul entered the last decade of the nineteenth century with high hopes. He was a mature artist painting what he wanted to…impressionist landscapes in watercolor.  Painting more and earning less, he was moving away from oil portraits, even though they sold better and paid better. Predictably, he was on the mill’s payroll again during 1892 & 93.

But January 1893 was his final employment at the mill. That he was not sorry can be inferred from the tone of letters the mill constantly sent him… like this one received in Indiana:

“My dear Paul, we’re disappointed that you made only one town Monday. Try to get over the ground. Write us in regard to crop plantings & other matters likely to increase demand for twine. Yours truly, Ky R. Mills.”  Here’s another in Minnesota:  “My dear Paul, We hope you are now in running order and will get around the country at a more lively rate. We had only one telegram from you in a week. We repeat, write and wire us regularly so we can reach you almost every day. Yours truly, Ky R. Mills.”

The Panic of 1893 didn’t help. This nationwide depression lasted several years.  Sales plummeted in every kind of business. Kentucky River Mills saw hard times and had to reduce its work force. I infer this prompted Paul’s switch to fulltime artistry, since he had always worked for the mill only as a last resort when poor art sales forced him to get a job. With his mill option closed, he increasingly painted scenes in and around Frankfort.

In 1893 Frankfort was under pressure from the federal government to replace its old covered bridge on St Clair Street because it was the only access from the south to the new federal building at the corner of St Clair and Wapping St. Citizen reluctance to tear down the beloved old covered bridge, built in 1847, had delayed action for years.  The city finally agreed to build a new one…on condition that the old one remain until the new bridge was completed. However…in August the entire south end collapsed and the old covered bridge was closed forever. Work speeded up on the new span…which was known as “the steel bridge”…until 1937, when its worn-out wooden floor was replaced with steel grates and people started calling it the singing bridge.

Before the covered bridge got fully torn down, Paul finished etching two copper plates of the old bridge he had started years earlier.  As it happened, Joe LeCompte’s drugstore sold art supplies, for which Paul had a running charge acct.   It lasted many years…and never got paid off.  Joe and Paul struck a deal. Joe would pay to send Paul’s copper etchings to a Chicago printer who would produce paper prints. Joe would then sell these prints for $6 or $7, give half to Paul, and use his half to reduce Paul’s never-ending bill.  The prints turned out to be popular and sales were good. History does not record whether it was Paul or Joe LeCompt who thought up this deal, but my money’s on Joe.

Later that year Paul traded some paintings for cash to attend the “Chicago World Columbian Exposition of 1893.” He took some paintings to show in Kentucky’s exhibit.  Around this time he did an impressionist waterscape of himself and Mayme in a canoe. Mayme’s scrapbook of the same period contains a long list of their friends who were married:

• March 1890, Sue French to Logan McKee;
• June 1893, Suzanne Smith to Western Thomas.

These things clearly were on her mind.

Paul’s paintings were sold through various Frankfort stores. Frank Stagg’s hardware may seem an odd outlet, but Frank was Paul’s buddy and people did buy some art at the hardware store. But acclaim for his art was not widespread, and sales never took off.  There’s no evidence Paul ever did well at marketing his work—or at selling period: witness how he disliked traveling as a rope & twine salesman.

Two years into the depression, Paul’s father Nat Sawyier borrowed $5,500 from Farmer’s Bank—an enormous sum in those days. Payoff was due in six months, but what happened was a series of defaults, lawsuits and court actions. These dragged on over six years, and were disastrous for Nat, his wife Ellen & his son Paul. Making matters worse, Nat was developing dementia and would soon be unable to earn a living.

Paul spent many happy hours idling in the Turf Café on St Clair Street.   Known as Jimmy Gibbons’ place, the Turf Café was no ordinary place. It had a back room where the good ole boys hung out.  These included state senators, judges, the governor, other high state officials… and Paul Sawyier. They ate, gossiped, smoked & drank in grand privacy, because its entrance was through a side door, straight off the street, so they didn’t have to be seen going thru the dining room.

Paul Sawyier was a “neat” person. Someone who knew him well said “Paul would go … out on Elkhorn for a month, and when he returned he was just as good of appearance as when he left. Never got dirty on his outing trips; never saw him looking untidy in appearance.” His friends remembered him as ambivalent about concentrated work. It is said he could not sit down and paint on demand, and skipped painting at all for many days at a time. One friend said “Paul would idle about Frankfort for several months, until necessity urged him, when he would suddenly become industrious, go frequently into the field, & paint many pictures.” He would go weeks painting nothing at all—some thought him simply lazy.    He loved joining friends on a houseboat up the river for two weeks of fishing & camping. Some said Paul didn’t do much of the cooking or camp work. Tom Averill said “Paul Sawyier was hardly ever painting then, ‘[he was] usually playing the guitar, or just lounging around playing cards.”  His paintings in this period included many views of the covered bridges at Switzer and Forks of Elkhorn.

As for his romance with Mayme Bull, the years were simply rolling by.