“Part of what’s always been important to me was showing that Western women have more than one or two facets,” she said. “I just wanted to reflect the people I knew and grew up with. They were hard-working, they were funny, and they were competent – on all levels. They could drive a hay truck all night if they had to, or plow in an open-air tractor, and then they dressed up and looked like a million bucks when they needed to. That was the degree of confidence and competence and realness and joy that I wanted to show.”
Incidentally, joy is what is conveyed in her cowgirls, through their expressions and their activities, but also what is invariably evoked in the viewer from the use of her vibrant, playful palette.
“I think that all of us humans come a little bit hardwired for color preference. In college, even before I was doing cowboys or cowgirls or anything Western, it was big color-filled paintings.”
Happy colors and happy cowgirls have become her signature and secured her status as a pioneer in the Western art world.
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