The bronze sculptures stand in the Hitching Post Studio, a tribute to the Old West captured by an artist some might call a maverick. A heart attack made Frank Reese Sr. -- who grew up thinking artists were sissies - turn seriously to the craft in 1972. The Lindsborg self-taught artist, now 69, is more at home in overalls and on a horse than with the world of art, where his sculptures bring several thousand dollars each.

His sculptures are in private collections across the country, including that of former President Reagan. Frank sent one of his bighorn sheep sculptures to Reagan in 1983 after learning that the president had such sheep on his ranch.

Frank's sculptures capture the essence of the Old West, from the tiny details on a cavalry horse's saddle to Indian artifacts. He has put people from his own life into his sculptures and the animals are meticulously crafted by Reese, who grew up working cattle and horses on his grandfather's farm near Abilene. For a new sculpture that depicts a scene from the Civil War era, Frank studied books of saddles from the period and uncovered a real buffalo skeleton to use as a model.

"You gotta get everything right. Ninety-nine won't know the difference, but one will and he can't wait to tell ya."

To Frank, sculpting is no special talent. He wonders why everyone can't reproduce what they see.

"To me, I think everybody should be able to copy anything they see. If you can see it, I don't know why you can't reproduce it."

The natural talent seems to run in the family and Frank said that three of his four children "could be artists if they wanted." Daughter Susan is an artist in Santa Fe, N.M., and his dad did hand engravings.

"Susan could draw pictures before she could go to school, soon as she got a pencil in her hand."

A high school dropout, Frank never had an art lesson.

"You can't read books. It won't do you any good to go to school if you don't have some idea of what an animal looks like . . . The best way to learn is to make a mistake."

His father was a boxer and a farmer, and the last thing Frank thought he'd be is an artist. But a heart attack forced him to change his lifestyle at the age of 50. Prior to that, Frank had made a steel sculpture by pounding and welding, and he began to explore the wax sculpturing and bronze casting, which proved much easier and allowed for greater detail. He even created his own foundry to cast the sculptures, but now they are sent to a foundry in Oklahoma for the expensive and time-consuming process. In 1984, he built the Hitching Post Studio adjacent to his house, on a quiet dirt road just off the highway in Lindsborg.

Frank doesn't think he'll ever run out of subjects.

"I got more ideas than I got money."

It can cost thousands of dollars to have a single sculpture cast in bronze so it isn't feasible for Frank to have many sitting in galleries, though he has sold a number that way, in Lindsborg and in Kansas City.

"A lot of galleries want 'em, but they want me to put up the money so I jest keep 'em at home. They're better off sitting here, selling one now and then."

His home studio is visited often by tourist to Lindsborg or groups of school children. In summer 1991, he was working on his 32nd sculpture; each one is cast between 20 and 50 times. Prices for a single animal start at $400.

After attending high school in Gypsum, Frank decided to go to trade school, attracted by the high wages - $2.25 an hour - Boeing was paying at the time. Frank was then making $1 a day working on the farm, He finished the course and at the age of 18 became a machinist at Boeing in 1941, where he worked until 1944 when he joined the military. After serving for two years, he began farming and farmed until 1961, finally quitting because "I didn't like the government telling me what to do." He then bought a welding business and moved to Lindsborg.

Some of his sculptures are of a single animal -- a buffalo or horse, for instance - and others are scenes that tell a story, such as the one where a cowboy is flung from his horse by a charging buffalo, which actually happened to Frank. Or there's his favorite sculpture, "The Gift of the Great Spirit," in which an Indian makes an offering to the gods before a hunt.

Frank's patience is endless: He spent seven months trying to perfect a horse's mane so it would be as flowing in bronze as it is in real life. But don't ask his secret; he won't tell. And some pieces, such as Indian feathers, are poured in bronze separately and then attached to enrich their realism.

The result is pioneer women, Indians, cowboys, buffalo and other vestiges of the Old West crafted in lines so graceful they seem to contradict the hard edged bronze that has captured them for eternity.