Kent B. Lemon makes his career a fine art (and vice-versa).

• Author: BRONIKOWSKI, LYNN
• Position: Brief Article

It's not surprising that Denver artist Kent Lemon makes a living doing what he loves -- painting fine art, illustrating for magazines, and capturing hunting and fishing excursions on canvas.

The writing was on the wall in the early 1980s when, as an art student at New York City's Parsons School of Design, Lemon would espouse the Nobel-winning economic theories of monetarist Milton Friedman while others in the East Village talked existentialist Soren Kirkegaard.

"We'd wear Ronald Reagan buttons and were right-wingers right there in the belly of the avant-garde left-wingers," recalled Lemon of days spent with his roommate Gene Fama, whose father Eugene was a University of Chicago economist with Friedman. "And when the teachers would say, 'You can't make a living doing art,' I would say, 'You may as well close the school down. What are we doing here if you can't make a living at art?'"

Lemon, whose parents collected art, grew up in Denver around artists, meeting many successful painters and sculptors in the 1960s and '70s and forming friendships that continue today. His artistic talents perked early.

"I was going to be a doctor like my dad (radiologist Dr. Jerry Lemon) -- even spent a year in pre-med at CU," said Lemon. "But during lectures I'd find myself drawing people's hands just to fight the boredom. That's when I knew 'I really like this,' and while most kids draw and paint, I figured out I could make a living out of it."

The process started slowly including what he suspects were "mercy sales" when his parents' friends bought his art just to give him some business. He would go on painting trips, including one to Nantucket, where he met his wife, Amy. They are now parents of four sons.

"When you start out, your work is terrible because you're trying to get your voice, learning how to move the paint around on the canvas," said Lemon. "My first show was mostly drawings at a Cherry Creek gallery. I sold everything -- made $1,500 -- and thought it was a...