Show Preview | Cowgirl Up!

This story was featured in the March/April 2019 issue of Southwest Art magazine. Get the Southwest Art March/April 2019 print issue or digital download now–then subscribe to Southwest Art and never miss another story.

AT A MOMENT when women’s issues and strong, creative women are gaining increasing visibility in the world, the Desert Caballeros Western Museum’s exhibition and sale, Cowgirl Up! Art From the Other Half of the West, is right in step with the times. This year marks the museum’s 14th annual showcase for contemporary female artists expressing a range of perspectives on life in the West. “We’ve been on the cutting edge for 14 years, and right now it’s more important than ever to highlight female artists,” notes Dan Finley, the museum’s executive director.

This year’s Cowgirl Up! show presents more than 200 paintings, drawings, and sculptures by 56 invited artists, most of whom are on hand for the three-day opening weekend celebration. Events on Friday, March 29, include a gala opening reception and the sale of the show’s miniature works. On Saturday, March 30, keynote speaker Katherine Benton-Cohen, a professor of cultural history at Georgetown University in Washington, DC, addresses the importance of western female artists. That evening brings bidding on the main gallery works, a sit-down dinner, and the awards ceremony. Rounding out the weekend on Sunday is a chuckwagon breakfast plus a Quick Draw and live auction. Remaining artworks are on view and available for purchase at the museum through May 12.

Sculptor Deborah Copenhaver-Fellows has exhibited in Cowgirl Up! since its inception, winning Best of Show, People’s Choice, and Purchase Awards over the years. The show is an appropriate venue for the Arizona-based sculptor, whose subjects frequently present a feminine view of life in the West. One of her pieces on display this year, SPUN FROM THE FIBERS OF THE EARTH, depicts a burro carrying a baby in a cradleboard made of woven reeds, from Northern California’s Yurok tribe. The humble, hardworking burro is an “unsung hero,” the artist says.

Artist Rox Corbett features another kind of spun fiber in her dramatic charcoal drawing LIKE A LION. A longtime Wyoming resident, Corbett has sojourned in southern New Mexico during the past couple of winters, one year spending time with a woman who raises Navajo churro sheep. The superbly adapted breed arrived in North America almost 500 years ago, and its variously colored wool continues to be used in Navajo weaving today. The unshorn ewe in Corbett’s drawing appears to sport wild dreadlocks as she stands with her lamb in front of a Navajo rug. “I wanted to explore something a little different,” says the award-winning artist, whose exquisitely detailed work often focuses on equine or wildlife subjects.

Among the eight artists new to Cowgirl Up! this year is Micqaela Jones. An enrolled member of the Te-Moak Tribe of Western Shoshone, Jones grew up in an artistic family on the Duck Valley Indian Reservation, where she hunted, fished, and absorbed the natural beauty of northern Nevada. Today that traditional connection to the earth and animal wisdom fuels her art. Long known for richly hued acrylic works, Jones now also employs a more earth-toned palette. In both styles, she says, she aims for “what makes me happy.” —Gussie Fauntleroy

contact information928.684.2272www.westernmuseum.org

This story was featured in the March/April 2019 issue of Southwest Art magazine. Get the Southwest Art March/April 2019 print issue or digital download now–then subscribe to Southwest Art and never miss another story.

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