“Rodger” is happily established in his new home, just outside the entrance to the Museum of Outdoor Arts’ indoor gallery on the second level of the Englewood Civic Center, 1000 Englewood Parkway.

The whimsical, multi-hued, life size painting of a horse is created from two 4-foot by 8-foot sheets of plywood, cleverly joined so the seam doesn’t show, and is painted with oils.

Smith, emeritus professor of art at Metropolitan State College of Denver, says it was “significantly re-worked” several years after a first showing in an MSCD faculty show in 2001. He donated the painting to the MOA, where he has exhibited his work in past years.

Rodger inhabited Smith’s spacious home studio in Highlands Ranch until his move to this new pasture where hundreds of folks of all ages will enjoy him. “He is a large,” Smith says, “as the world’s biggest horse— although not as heavy.”

The new painting should delight kids and parents who visit the library on the ground floor— be sure to make a trip upstairs. Gallery visitors and Hampden Hall audiences will probably want to bring him an apple or carrot to match his colorful hide. (Smith quipped to the MOA staff about its location high over the stairwell, “How the hell did you get that up there?”)

On a more serious note: “Rodger” is a heartfelt tribute to Smith’s Metro State colleague, the nationally recognized ceramics artist Rodger Lang, who died in 2000. He was widely loved by students and professional colleagues.

Artists from across the nation mourned him as they gathered in Denver for a major national ceramics educators’ exhibit he had worked on. It opened days after his sudden death.

“He founded and built one of the best clay programs in the country,“ Smith wrote. “Rodger had a rare quality: I always looked forward to seeing him, and I always felt good around him. He somehow managed to be the calming one at faculty meetings, who was capable of seeing through the highly subjective opinions in our divided department, and express the most workable solutions. How did he do that?

“He was something of a delightful leftover hippie…. I don’t think Rodger had anything to do with horses, but he died when I initiated this painting… I loved Rodger. Maybe you know someone who thinks before speaking, who has grace in his behavior, who makes no assumptions…. a gift in my life — he is still living in my life.”

“Rodger” will be on view in the atrium whenever the Englewood Civic Center is open.