Anytime I travel somewhere that feels “ranchy” I check to see if there’s a gallery displaying the artwork of Donna Howel-Sickles. Even if you don’t recognize the name, you’ve probably seen her work and not realized it. The 2019 Pendleton Roundup posters were by her hand. I once found her art printed on a silk scarf in a vendor booth at an Arabian Show. And you can see her canvases in museums in Cody, Wyoming, Jackson Hole, and Wickenburg, Arizona. Wickenburg is actually where I first fell in love with the beaming faces of her cowgirls. I wanted to be one of those women.

In spring I had a trip planned for Fort Worth, Texas and I started Googling where I could find a gallery displaying her artwork in the city. One gallery kept coming up, Davis & Blevins, but it was an hour and half away in St. Jo, Texas. I probably skipped over that name 20 times looking for something closer to town. Finally, I clicked on it.

The Davis & Blevins Gallery is the gallery Donna Howell-Sickels and her husband established together, in an historic building they refurbished. I felt incredibly lucky to have finally realized what a gem this was. I called the gallery a few days before I was set to leave for Texas just to make sure her art would be on display. I felt silly asking such a thing, but Texas hospitality would hear none of my sheepishness and Ginger was happy to tell me that not only would Donna’s artwork be on display, I could tour her studio as well, which was above the gallery. Fan girling on the phone I gushed that I definitely wanted to tour the studio. And then Ginger asked when I was coming, “Saturday morning? Oh Donna will be here. You can meet her.” High pitched “reallys?!” and “thank yous!” were screeched in Ginger’s ear. Sorry Ginger.

The saying “never meet your heroes” did not apply in this case. Thank goodness. Donna was as warm and welcoming and light as the women in her paintings.

Donna led the way up the stairs to her studio, me staring wide eyed. An antique saddle resting on a saddle blanket on the banister above, a fur draped next to it. I may as well have been a kid walking through the wardrobe of my own cowgirl dream land. There were rows upon rows of books, completed canvasses, chaps and chinks, a toy gun, feathers, quills, more furs and saddles. I got to see six different easels of works-in-progress, each easel topped with a different cowboy hat. When finally I stopped gaping at everything, we talked about the path that led her to this point.

After art school she wanted to produce western art, not an especially popular subject at the time and one dominated by male artists. But she felt passionately that was the direction she wanted to go, wanting to create fresh images that reflected her experience of the west. Specifically, that reflected the women she knew existed in the west but who hadn’t previously been represented in western art. Women who could rope all day and then make a meal for the 40 people who had gathered to help with branding. Women who were strong and vulnerable at the same time, who had incredible stories to share of their own west, the contemporary west. Donna’s west.

I have gone East to feel the west many times in my life. Leaving Oregon for the Arizona guest ranch I worked at. Road trips from the Willamette Valley to Pinedale, Wyoming. And again, here I was having left the West for Texas, to be reminded of my own West. Donna Howell-Sickles’ art embodies how I feel about my writing and horseback riding. She walks a fine line between urban and country, between a lifestyle that fewer and fewer live daily but many still admire.

A friend recently downplayed her cowgirl status when someone on social media called her one. My friend said she couldn’t rope and she couldn’t ride as pretty as a cowgirl, but she’d try the rest of her life. Let me pause her to tell you this friend of mine worked as a wrangler throughout Arizona and Wyoming, makes camp meals out of camp tents and continues to ride and cook for crowds and live in the far reaches of Montana.

Her comment made me defensive for her. Because in my opinion, you don’t have to rope calves on branding day to be a cowgirl. You don’t even have to have cows to be a cowgirl. Plenty of women I know ride but haven’t spent a day checking a fence line, or trailed cows down to a watering hole in years. If ever. Being a cowgirl is about having grit and determination, about riding on when it would be easier to hide under the covers. Literal and metaphorical. Cowgirls aren’t made by the boots they wear or the chaps they don or the animals they own. Life carves cowgirls out of experience, determination, and care for animals. They are shaped by making hard decisions in tough circumstances and continuing to find blessings to smile about.

In the same way you don’t have to rope cows to be a cowgirl, you don’t have to be a cowgirl to see yourself in Donna’s art. The women who come to life on her canvases are strong, beautiful, intelligent, daring, imaginative, and wild.

If you’ve read this blog at all, I bet you’re one too.

To cowgirls.

You can find the above piece for sale, and others, online at Donna Howell-Sickles – Work Zoom: I’ll Fly Away (donnahowellsickles.com)