Hanging in Naomi and Barry Brown’s Arizona home is Coyote Pouncing by Chuck Caplinger, one of several pieces of his in their collection. Caplinger is among a number of transplants from Los Angeles to the Mojave Desert that included James Cagney, Esther Williams and painter John Hilton. Caplinger moved there in 1997. A more recent transplant is Whitney Gardner who has lived there for the past 16 years, living in a homestead cabin and painting in a vintage Airstream. Her painting, Naomi’s Backyard, is in the Browns’ collection.
Above the sofa is Cloud Riders, 2018, oil, by Philip Journeay, followed by two paintings by Dennis Ziemienski: Horseback Valley View, 2019, and Afternoon Adjustments, 2023, both oil. Next to the Ziemienski paintings are Rachel Brownlee’s Outrider, 2025, and Thomas Blackshear II’s Cowboy Cool, oil.Naomi was born in nearby Palm Springs in 1975 and was brought up in Twentynine Palms, both in California. There was original art in her home. Her mother was also a painter when Naomi was growing up. She didn’t think about being an artist until her 20s, although she had painted for a number of years and didn’t become a full-time, professional, working artist until she was 48. Her work is included in national annual exhibitions and sales of Western art as well as in temples of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Living in Twentynine Palms, she had looked up to and admired Caplinger’s paintings. “Sometime after I had achieved some success,” Naomi says, “Chuck had a studio sale and Barry encouraged me to go to the sale and to buy some paintings. I went to the studio and Chuck told me how wonderful my art work is. I was awestruck.”
From left: The Duke, 2024, oil, by Calista Ward. A Turn for the Worse, 2025, ink and watercolor, by Blu Dornan.The desert landscape of Twentynine Palms had a profound impact on Naomi as she was growing up. The landscape around her new home in Arizona adds to that impact, inspiring her landscape paintings.
“I am very passionate about my Southwest desert surroundings and try to portray this through each piece of my work. My goal with my art, is to move the viewer and give them an emotional connection to the subject through my paintings. I am very grateful that I am able to do what I love each day…Once you let the desert enter your soul it changes you. The desert has been instilled in my heart forever.”
The paintings are—top to bottom, left to right—Bull, 2025, by Brent Flory; Watcher by Vicki Pedersen; Blue Yearling by Brent Flory; Angel, 2007, by Wilson T. Ang; Cocky, 2025, by Sonja Jackson; Girl in Red and Indigo, 2025, by Harper Henry; First Day, 2023, by Sherry Cobb; Tomato Lover, 2025, by Stuart Dunkel; Momentary Glance, 2000, by Morgan Weistling; Brown Filly by Amanda Cowan; Dusty Sky by Nocona Burgess (Comanche); Mama and Baby, 2023, by Kwani Povi Winder (Santa Clara Pueblo); and Pride of the Prairie, 2024, by Jeremy Winborg. In the distance is Naomi’s Backyard, 2022, oil, by Whitney Gardner.Yet, her work doesn’t hang in the home she shares with Barry and their daughter Ruby. “We want to support other artists,” she explains. “One of my paintings may hang in the house for a short time before it goes off to a gallery, a collector or an exhibition. We rarely have a landscape since I’m a landscape painter. Barry likes figurative paintings that tell a story.
On the left are, top to bottom, Enlightened, 2021, oil, by Kwani Povi Winder (Santa Clara Pueblo) and Still Honored, oil, by Elizabeth Robbins. On the right is Christ Portrait, oil, by Dan Wilson.
“I love to celebrate other people’s artistic talent and to support that. My husband does, too. We love to beautify our home with original art by other artists’ work…Barry is a better collector than I am. He didn’t know much about art but over the last six or seven years he got excited. He loves to go to auctions and to buy from shows that I’m in. We bought Thomas Blackshear’s Cowboy Cool last year at Legacy Gallery’s Western Horizons exhibition. All the works are sold by draw and both Barry and I put our names in. He had seen the painting online and really wanted to have it. When his name was drawn he was very excited.”
In the hallway are, left to right, Sundown at the Rawhide, 2025, oil, by Dennis Ziemienski, and Back to Taloga, 2025, acrylic, by Starr Hardridge (Muscogee Creek). Above the sideboard is Bring It, 2023, oil, by Brent Flory. Beneath the painting is a raven sculpture, Nothing But Blue Skies, bronze, by Heather Johnson Beary. Cigar Store Indian is to the right.
On the left is Augustine Store Navajo, oil, by R. Brownell McGrew (1916-1994) followed by an oil by Sheila Cottrell and Chief of the Pigeon Blackfeet, 2025, charcoal, by Stephanie Campos.
The large painting on the left is A Good Scratch, 2024, oil, by Amanda Cowan. Beneath it, from left to right, are Yucca, oil, by Mark Spangenberg and Sat Night, 2024, oil, by Yun Wei. In the alcove is Is Anything Really Real Anymore Anyway?, 2025, oil, by Dustin Klassen. On the sideboard are, left to right, Wild Bill, bronze, by Rick Terry, and Martha, bronze, by Pat Roberts.
Sometimes the story a painting tells has a personal connection for the collecting couple. David Mann’s The Silver Gilt features a donkey outside a hogan, a reminder of their beloved donkey, Mistletoe, who was adopted from the Bureau of Land Management (BLM).
Barry may be a relative newcomer to art collecting, but for the past 25 years he has practiced the art of building with his company Old School Masonry in Queen Creek, Arizona, where they live. The family lived in a small casita on their property while their masonry home was being built.
On the side wall is Jade, 2021, oil, by Jeremy Lipking. In the far room is Coyote Pouncing, oil, by Chuck Caplinger. In the hallway is Full Bloom, oil, by Jessica Garrett Lawrence. The large painting is Membreno Moon, oil, by Don Oelze.
When Francis Smith arrived to photograph the Arizona collection, he was startled by the masonry walls just as I was when I saw the photos. The question was, “How do you hang the art?” Naomi explains that it’s easier than hanging on drywall, which will always leave a mark when a painting is moved around. A masonry bit and a drill create a hole for an anchor and a screw. When a painting is moved, the anchor can be removed, the hole filled and, after a dab of paint, the wall is like new.
On the bedroom wall are, left to right, Horseback Lakota, 2022, oil, by Jason Rich; The Silver Gilt, 2025, oil, by David Mann; and Lion and the Lamb, 2019, oil, by Dyana Hesson.
One spectacular and unavoidable part of their collection is a huge, mounted bison head named Hank. Naomi’s late uncle had been a hunter, and Barry purchased the trophy from her aunt as a surprise gift. More often, his surprise gifts are paintings.
One of their cats is leery of Hank and pauses when she walks by, looking up to be sure he’s not going to leap off the wall and attack her. She is part of a menagerie of inside cats, outside cats, a mare, Mistletoe the donkey, 20 chickens and dogs.
Barry and Naomi Brown’s home in Queen Creek, Arizona.
Naomi and Barry Brown pose among their collection which includes, the paintings, from left to right, Apache Scouts, 2025, oil, by Z.S. Liang; Mr. Many Goats, 1982, oil, by Greg Olsen; and Cloud Riders, 2018, oil, by Philip Journeay.
Another item with family connections is a Cigar Store Indian, an advertising prop from the early 20th century, that came from Barry’s dad.
In addition to supporting living artists, the collectors have the pleasure of living with their art and entering into the scenes and stories. “It’s part of our everyday life,” Naomi shares. —
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