Twice in his career, someone recognized David Griffin’s talent before he did; now he and Lorna have endowed a scholarship to do that for the next generation of artists.

An artist’s studio tells a story. 

Large, wood-framed windows let in ample rural Colorado light. Smooth, cream walls connect to high, wood-paneled ceilings. A southwestern white, black and tan rug is centered among rustic wooden and leather furniture. At its edges, a tripod holds a sketchpad and an easel with a blank canvas, waiting for vision to strike.

But the artist’s most treasured pieces sit in the far corner — a dark leather saddle from the early 1900s, perched atop a saddle horse, with four short-brimmed silver-belly cowboy hats hung above. 

“It’s my grandfather’s saddle and all of my dad’s old cowboy hats,” said David Griffin. “It grounds me. It allows me not to forget where I came from, the good stuff and the bad stuff and all of it together. But the heritage and legacy of that, beginning with my grandfather, has really resonated with me even today — what the family name means and what got us to this point. And the older you get, the more important that gets.”

David, a Texas Tech University alumnus, is a contemporary western artist whose paintings masterfully capture the rugged and often overlooked beauty of cowboys and the American West. 

His accolades are many. David’s work has been featured in Cowboys and Indians, Victoria, The Dallas Morning News, Western Art Collector, Western Art and Architecture and Southwest Art. In 2020, he was selected as a Texas Centennial Artist for the Bullock Museum to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Texas State Parks. His art has been exhibited worldwide, from the National Ranching Heritage Center and the Coors National Western Art Exhibition to galleries in New York and Barcelona, Spain.

While his reach has been far, he has never forgotten his roots or family legacy.

David was raised in Lubbock, Texas, surrounded by the landscapes that now grace his canvas, but he said the draw to the cowboy and ranching lifestyle comes from his grandfather. 

Around 1910, Luther Marvin Griffin was living in southern Oklahoma. His mother had passed away years earlier, and his father had been struck by the idea of going to California — alone — to try his hand at being a stuntman or wrangler in the newly invented silent films. 

“His father, well, to use the correct word, abandoned him,” David said. “Just left him out on his own at 11 years old.”

With his family gone, Luther decided to make his own way. Just barely into double digits in age, he put on everything he owned — a few shirts, a couple of pairs of pants and maybe a pair of shoes — and began his search for a better life. He stumbled along until he came across the iconic Matador Ranch, where the foreman took him in and gave him a job. 

Luther walked onto the ranch in the fall of 1910. The next spring, as the weather warmed, he started peeling off the layers he had arrived in — pants worn over pants, a shirt over a shirt. One of the cowboys watched him work out of them and called to the others that the kid looked like a snake shedding its skin. Luther promptly earned the nickname “Snake.”

The nickname evolved as he grew up, transitioning to “Reptile” in his teens before settling into “Rip” as an adult. It stuck so firmly that when his son, Bobbie (David’s father), was born, he also earned the moniker “Rip.” David inherited the nickname as well, and it has now been passed down to his own grandson. 

David spent much of his childhood in that world, first on trips with his grandfather back to the Matador Ranch and later at the family’s ranch in Spur, Texas. David fondly remembers spending time with his grandfather, who taught him and his brother, Mark, the ins and outs of working with horses, from basic care to saddling. 

“That’s why when I found out about my grandfather’s life, how he got started, it really gave me a lot of courage and inspiration, not necessarily to be an artist, but to do what I was intended to do,” David said.

While it may seem that David was destined to be found with a paintbrush in hand, bringing to life the daily toils and beauty of life on a ranch, that is certainly not where he began.

Raised just blocks from campus, listening to the Goin’ Band from Raiderland practice from his backyard, David treated Texas Tech as a foregone conclusion when it came time to choose a college. Both of his parents had attended Texas Tech, and his dad played baseball at the university. They were family friends with Texas Tech legend and College of Media & Communication Professor Bill Dean and lived across the street from J.T. King, the head football coach from 1961 to 1969.

“When you grow up like that, you just kind of think that you’re already a Red Raider before you ever were a Red Raider,” he chuckled. 

College started out smoothly. Already immersed in the Texas Tech culture, David had friends on campus, including the woman who is now his wife, Lorna, whom he’d met at church. He had decided to rush Phi Delta Theta. He had everything figured out — or so he thought.

That was until he was in line at the coliseum to register for classes. He realized then that he had no idea what he wanted to study.

“I could hear the counselors talking and saying, ‘Well, what is your major?’” David said. “I thought, ‘Oh man, I don’t know what to do. I can spell major, but I don’t know what my major is.’”

Then he had an idea. He struck up a conversation with the student in front of him: Trey from Midland, Texas.

“I’m hearing that they’re asking for us to declare a major; well, they want us to at least imply what a major would be,” David started.

“Well, I’m going into pre-med,” Trey responded.

“Shoot, that sounds real good,” David affirmed. “I’ll do just that.”

Which is how the artist ended up with two years of pre-med education — what he describes as the disaster on the horizon that led him to the School of Art.

By his second year of college, David knew something had to give. He had walked on to the baseball team and was enrolled in both analytical chemistry and calculus, and he was struggling to keep up with it all.

Then the grades made the decision for him. He was no longer a premed candidate, and that meant more than a change of plans: in 1971, a student who dropped below 12 hours lost his deferment. The classification went from 4-F to 1-A, and 1-A meant Vietnam.

He had to declare a new major and fill 12 hours, essentially overnight. He had been taking a life drawing class at night on campus. Despite not having an artist in his family, frankly, not even knowing a professional artist himself, David couldn’t get past the love he had for drawing, for the feeling of graphite on a piece of paper and the life that emerged.

He stepped away from the baseball team and enrolled.

“Looking back, those failures in chemistry and calculus turned out to be the best thing that could happen to me because I never would’ve ever thought of being an artist or being connected to the (School of Art) at all,” David said. “I would’ve probably gone into the family business, and art would’ve been just a whisper, a breath of air blown across the plains; it would’ve just been nothing but a fleeting thought.”

David discovered where he excelled and began dedicating himself to his classes, turning this passion into a profession.

In his final year of college, a professor handed him the opportunity of a lifetime. David had grown close to Frank Cheatham, who recognized and nurtured his talents. Cheatham had submitted a portion of David’s work in an application to the first-ever class of the Illustrators Workshop in New York.

David was accepted and soon found himself surrounded by, and learning from, top-notch industry professionals. Founded by Bernie Fuchs, Mark English, Alan E. Cober, Robert Heindel, Fred Otnes and Bob Peak, the workshop was an intensive, month-long summer program where professional artists and advanced students gathered for critiques, portfolio reviews, slide lectures and direct mentorship.

David was one of the few college students in the class of roughly 45 participants from around the world; most were already in their professional careers. However, he befriended one of the other students there, Chris Payne, now a widely published caricaturist and illustrator whose work has graced the covers of Time, Sports Illustrated, Rolling Stone, Mad, Esquire, National Geographic, Spy and Reader’s Digest.

As David and Payne sat on the steps of Marymount College in Tarrytown, New York, they watched the founders drive up in Aston Martins, Mercedes and a white Rolls-Royce, decked out to the nines in quirky clothing. 

David turned to his companion and said, “I think we’re in the right place. I think we’re in the right profession.”  

The participants spent their summer immersed in the craft, touring the founding artists’ studios, researching in libraries and museums in Manhattan and other boroughs, and drawing in their dorms. 

“That’s really where I learned about the business of art, not just fine art but commercial art,” David said. “One of the biggest blessings of my art career was being invited to that school because it just gave me a big picture of what the commercial art world could be like, and how you could plug yourself in.”

When the workshop concluded, David moved to Dallas, where Lorna, whom he had married in 1974, was living and teaching. Lorna graduated with bachelor’s degrees in English and Spanish from the College of Arts & Sciences. She had always known she wanted to be a teacher and focused on the subjects she enjoyed most as a student. 

By the time David arrived, Lorna had accepted a teaching job in Highland Park straight out of college, a position she still describes as a “dream job.”

David set up a graphic design studio in Dallas where he worked as an illustrator. He would receive a script or article from a publication and create art to match, often on a tight turnaround. The deadlines were never three weeks out — two days, sometimes overnight.

“My patience wore thin after a while,” David said. “I just became a pair of hands.”

In his first two years working in Texas, he met Bart Forbes, who invited David to rent studio space in a large house where Forbes and illustrator Jack Unruh both worked. The prospect of working alongside the two was its own draw. David accepted immediately.

This is where he would spend the next 10 years — illustrating graphic art as a career and painting on the side, displaying the art in his studio space. Then, one day, Tony Altermann walked into his studio and changed his trajectory with seven words: “I can sell these paintings right now.”

Altermann co-owned a gallery with Jack Morris just down the street from David’s studio. He represented David for more than a decade, and the two gallerists took him under their wing, coaching him in another sector of the business: fine art. 

At the time, he mostly did figurative work featuring his wife and daughter, along with landscapes inspired by their vacations to France. Altermann shifted his perspective again, suggesting he focus on subject matter closer to his own roots. 

David was reminded of his grandfather’s life and the time he spent with him and set out to capture the imagery he remembered with such fondness. He began traveling to ranches and working with the cowboys there.

He watched everything they did, from riding horses and gathering cattle to working at the headquarters, capturing moments through photography and drawing. Back out on the ranch, David knew he had found his motif. 

“Honoring my heritage, that’s what became important,” David said. “It’s honoring our ancestors and our family and the heritage of our family and others. Multitudes of families that were living during that time, ranching and farming, and still are today.”

Through this subject matter, David was also able to connect back to another important aspect of his family’s heritage: their alma mater, Texas Tech.

In the early 2010s, Heidi Brady, a professor in the Department of Animal & Food Sciences, and Scott White contacted David. The pair was looking to publish a book, “Horses in the American West: Portrayals by Twenty-Four Artists,” highlighting artists who render the horse in art across different mediums. They wanted David to be one of the 24 artists featured in the book.

After the book was published in 2018, Brady asked David to serve as a guest lecturer in her Horses in World Art class, an opportunity he readily took. Lorna helped him build that first presentation. He still guest lectures today and has presented on many iterations of the horse in art, from the Paleolithic cave paintings of horses in Lascaux, France, to how those early depictions connect to today’s artists.

After one of these lectures in early 2021, his brother, Mark, invited him to a campus event announcing Gordon and Joyce Davis’ transformational gift to the Davis College of Agricultural Sciences & Natural Resources. While mingling at the event, he met faculty and staff from the J.T. & Margaret Talkington College of Visual & Performing Arts (TCVPA).

From there, his involvement grew. He met students and other professors in the college as well as Dean Martin Camacho. From professors with a profound passion for both their disciplines and their students, to students from around the world with boundless energy and commitment to learning, the Griffins were struck by the people they met.

The more he and Lorna reconnected with Texas Tech, the more they saw a university whose reach they wanted others to recognize.

“I think sometimes you have to move away from a place that’s very familiar to really appreciate it,” Lorna said. “The longer we’ve been away, and the older we’ve become, the more I think we both see Texas Tech as a gem that not enough people know about or appreciate. We’re both very proud of the heritage that’s there, and we don’t want to lose that as we move into the future. We appreciate the people, the region, the place and the culture more now, having been away from it for a while. We’d like to open doors for other people to enjoy it.”

A language teacher, Lorna makes the case in practical terms. Studying the arts teaches analysis and creative problem-solving, and those skills follow a student into any career.

For David, it went a step further: not just preserving that heritage in Lubbock and on campus but enhancing it and helping others reconnect.

“Appreciating Tech from a distance after we left Lubbock may have been the biggest impetus of all,” David said. “We always had a sense of pride in the school, and it grew to the point that we felt it was time to get involved — not just with words, but to do something that would help the university and encourage others to connect with Tech.”

That conviction led the Griffins to make a substantial gift to TCVPA. A first-of-its-kind scholarship for the college, the David & Lorna Griffin Scholars in the Arts Scholarship Endowment reaches students in every discipline, with a preference for first-generation college students. It is aimed at the moment a talented student decides whether a Texas Tech education is possible at all.

“David and Lorna’s vision creates an impact at many levels,” Dean Camacho said, “with the students whose lives are transformed, for the relevance of the arts disciplines in higher education, and for the community who benefits from the transformative power of the arts.”

Twice, someone had put David in a room he wasn’t sure he belonged in — the workshop in Tarrytown, then Altermann’s gallery. Both times, someone saw something before he did. The scholarship is built to do the same thing on purpose.

For Lorna, the first-generation preference is not abstract. Money was tight in the family she grew up in, and she is not certain her parents could have afforded to send her anywhere but Texas Tech.

“And I would do it all again,” she said. “Now that I realize what a great education I got and what a wonderful place it was to grow up in and figure out what you wanted to do in life — it was the best place for me. If I had all the choices in the world, I’d go back to Tech.”

While they shared a commitment to preserving the legacy of Texas Tech and further developing the university, at the end of the day, it was the people who compelled them to give back.

It was a student who arrived from Mexico in junior high and won flute competitions before she could read the awards she was handed.

It was a student who was living in her car at one point, started college at 35 and now teaches at Arnett Benson Elementary.

It was a student who paints the struggle of women in Iran, work she could not exhibit in her own country.

It was watching Texas Tech’s jazz orchestra on a lawn in Mexico City, the only college group invited to the EuroJazz Festival at the Centro Nacional de las Artes. The crowd called them back three times, until the band ran out of songs and played one again.

It was Dean Camacho’s leadership of the college; dedication to the students, faculty and staff; and innovation to support cutting-edge research.

It was the belief that by uplifting people, we uplift the entire university.

He came away from those conversations and experiences with a single thought. 

“I’m going to run out of money before I run out of ideas,” he said, “because this is worth getting behind.”

Lorna put it more simply. “It doesn’t just change their lives,” she replied. “It changes their family’s lives.”

“There’s a ripple effect to all this,” David agreed. “It’s not the money — although everybody needs that to get to school. It’s being connected to people like this, people who are an inspiration to themselves, to their families, to their peers. You can’t come away from these conversations with these young people and not be profoundly affected. Somebody takes advantage of the opportunity, and you look down the road two years later, and they’re a completely different person. They’re successful, and they’re helping other people.”

What David hopes the story does is get someone else to act. Don’t wait, he says. Something on that campus needs you, and someone there needs you—and you will be paid back, multiplied.

“It doesn’t matter the amount or the time,” he said. “Just get involved.”