Dawn Sutherland, Time Stands Still, oil on canvas, 18 x 24”

Artist Corey Garman loves the West, especially the sunny, saguaro-filled state of Arizona. “More than anywhere else it feeds my senses and inspires me to share what I experience,” she says. “I am amazed that I can make an infinite variety of colors with oil paint just as there are an infinite number of colored gemstones. The colors of the desert are the most gem-like—they are pure, clear and crystalline, and like gemstones they change along with the light.” Garman says her paintings are a celebration of moments in the ever-changing Western landscape.

Naomi Brown, Teal Sky, oil and acrylic, 30 x 40”

Dawn Sutherland paints sweeping, atmospheric scenes of the Southwest. She says that artists must always be prepared for the quickly changing weather conditions when painting in plein air, particularly at the volatile Grand Canyon in Arizona. “The inspiration for Time Stands Still comes from a plein air piece started on a gloriously sunny morning that became shrouded by fast-moving rainstorms from the northwest,” Sutherland reflects on her piece in the show. “Drafts from below rose, carrying the scent of sage and wet earth…Sunlight streamed through lens-like breaks in the clouds, focusing magnificent color on the damp canyon walls. When the first raindrops struck my palette, it was time to pack up my gear and head to my car. It is that sensory experience that is painted right into the canvas.”

Diana Reuter-Twining, We Got This, bronze, 18 x 24 x12½” 

Sharon Markwardt loves attending Cowgirl Up! because it gives her the chance to see viewers engage directly with her artwork, hopefully making them smile or laugh. The artist utilizes her bright color palette to capture expressive paintings of her wildlife subjects, which seem to all have big personalities of their own. Markwardt says she believes that forging a connection to animals and the natural world can help bring peace and joy into today’s complex society. “If we can all learn to see the humor and personalities in other creatures, then surely we can recognize the same in our fellow humans, one smile at a time.”

Top: Corey Garman, Show Off, oil, 36 x 36”; Sharon Markwardt, Tall Texan, oil, 48 x 24”. Bottom: Sharon Markwardt, Mother’s Day, oil, 40 x 30”; Diana Reuter-Twining, Duet, bronze, ed. of 12, 16 x 25 x 15”.

The bronze sculptures of Diana Reuter-Twining capture dynamic moments of Western subjects in action. In We Got This, a cowboy races on horseback “cutting a cow from the herd during a competition,” says Reuter-Twining. “She is allowed two and a half minutes to cut two or three cows from the herd and is judged on how well she can keep these cows from going back into the herd, without using her reins. The title, We Got This, underlines the challenge she faces and expresses how she works with her horse as a team.” Another piece in the upcoming exhibition, titled Peace Like a River, features the artist with one of her dogs patiently waiting for something, or perhaps just resting. 

Top: Diana Reuter-Twining, Peace Like A River, bronze, ed. of 12, 18 x 24 x 15”; Barbara Meikle, Shy Guys at Lake Pleasant, 30 x 20”. Bottom: Karen Clarkson, Diné Royalty, oil on canvas, 24 x 18”; Barbara Meikle, Travelers Between Water and Sky, oil on canvas, 30 x 48”

This will be Barbara Meikle’s 12th year at the Cowgirl Up! exhibition. “I really want to push the envelope every year, whether with color, technique or subject matter,” she says. “My large horse painting, Travelers Between Water and Sky, is my continued exploration of the Salt River wild horses in Arizona. The beauty of their surroundings and the beauty of the horses themselves is something that continues to take my breath away.” Meikle works in both two-dimensional and three-dimensional art, bringing paintings and sculpture to the 2024 show. 

Arizona-based artist Naomi Brown is continuously inspired by the gorgeous surroundings of her Southwestern home. Her oil and acrylic Teal Sky, part of the upcoming exhibition, depicts a desert full of saguaro cactus subjects underneath a dramatic sky.

Barbara Meikle, Cloud Dancer, limited edition bronze with unique color patina, 7 x 7 x 4”

Michelle Kondos will be bringing to the 2024 show an oil on metal panel titled The Rebel. “In South Dakota last summer, I met a real deal cowgirl all covered in tattoos and riding in like the devil,” Kondos says of the piece. “Spellbound, I immediately felt compelled to try to capture her on canvas, but I wanted the image to bridge yesterday and today, so I painted her in the garb of a long-gone era. I kept imagining how much harder it must have been for a woman to have a rebellious spirit a hundred years ago, and yet how even then on horseback out on the range she could feel the same freedom that The Rebel obviously feels today.”

Karen Clarkson is a registered Choctaw artist that has been presenting her views on Native art for more than 25 years. A milestone in her career was when Clarkson’s art was on the cover of Native American Art for the 100th anniversary of the Santa Fe Indian Market in 2022. She will be bringing a portrait of a Navajo woman, Diné Royalty, to the 2024 edition of Cowgirl Up!. Clarkson spends every day creating artwork in a converted bedroom in her home. 

Michelle Kondos, The Rebel, oil on metal panel, 30 x 24”

“I felt this wonderful piece of stressed wood would be the perfect base for a group of emergent katsinas,” Deanne McKeown says of her sculptural piece in this year’s show. “Arriving in the fourth world, they settle the question—it is definitely not flat.” She continues, “It is with a sense of wonder and pleasure that I realize my work finds homes with people I may never meet, who will live intimately and connect with some part of the process and thought[s] I experienced while creating each piece.”

 “[The] desire to be a cowgirl and an ever-deepening interest in Native American culture and artifacts both grew exponentially upon my arrival in the ‘true West’ of Arizona over four decades ago,” still life artist Lisa Danielle reflects. She has been participating in the Cowgirl Up! exhibition and sale for 16 years and counting, adding that the show is the perfect venue for sharing her passion for painting and all things Western. “[The show] fosters camaraderie with curators, fellow artists and collectors who share that passion.”

Lisa Gordon, Impasse, bronze, 10 x 9 x 3”

“Horses have always been an intricate part of my life,” says sculptor Lisa Gordon. She drew them as a child, owned and trained them as a teen, and studied and revered them in college. “Now as an artist, it is natural that I sculpt the horse’s image,” she says. “The horse is the figure through which I actualize my ideas. It becomes a visual bridge between the viewer and me. My goal is to breathe new life into a historical subject. By using tension, whimsy and juxtaposition, my sculptures are carving out a space of their own in the world of equine sculpture.”

Lisa Danielle, Her Hopi Heritage, acrylic, 24 x 18”

In early 2023, Rebecca Tobey began to work on a major sculpture by combining her previous creations. “I decided to stack together several of my sculptures to make a totem of the iconic shapes that both Gene, my late husband and collaborator, and I had created. The stylized buffalo shape that Gene created has become one of the most recognizable sculptures we have done. So I began with two buffalo as the bottom figures of the totem, and then added another of Gene’s shapes, the standing bear,” she says of the process. “The top two figures are ones that I sculpted after his death: the bighorn sheep and the eagle on a wingtip. Star Bright epitomizes not only the 20-year collaboration that Gene and I had, but also the last 18 years since his death during which I have continued the work we began together.”

Top: Sheila Cottrell, Hot Coffee, oil, 24 x 30”; Deanne McKeown, So It’s Not Flat, bronze, 14 x 16 x 16”. Bottom: Rebecca Tobey, Star Bright, bronze totem, ed. of 25, 96 x 24 x 24”; Lisa Danielle, About Feathers, acrylic, 12 x 12”

“One of the first artistic inspirations I remember as a child remains a vivid memory,” says painter Sheila Cottrell. “The Old West ranch houses I was familiar with had nothing on their walls but calendars. When I asked my mother why we couldn’t have pretty pictures on our walls, she said they cost too much money. So I said, ‘Then I’ll paint my own.’” Cottrell has been painting Western scenes ever since. Her oil Hot Coffee will be part of the exhibition this spring.