When Tammy Pate was first dreaming about Art of the Cowgirl, bringing together experienced western artists with aspiring makers and providing mentorship was the ultimate goal. Now in its third year, the Art of the Cowgirl event attracts thousands of guests and generates the funds and support necessary to bring Pate’s dream to life.

“I thought it was very important that we honor women in the industry and let them be mentors,” Pate says. “Our Fellowship Program encourages arts and trades among western women, both continuing tradition and inspiring innovation.”

Art of the Cowgirl’s Fellowship Program provides a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for western artists to learn or refine their passion with some of the most talented makers in the business. Whether it’s fine art, functional trade or horsemanship, Art of the Cowgirl Fellowships seek to enrich, empower and educate, while honoring western heritage.

Read more: Art of the Cowgirl’s Fellowship Program Inspires Western Artists to New Heights

By Hope Ellis-Ashburn

Portraits by Shawna Simmons

Actress Melinda Van Dyck is a lifelong equestrian with Hollywood roots. The daughter of thespian Joan Bennett and screenwriter and producer Gene Markey, she was born in the 1930s and raised in the bright lights of Hollywood, California. While her childhood was unusual for most, it wasn’t uncommon for her social group.

Growing up on South Mapleton Drive in nearby Homby Hills, Melinda was surrounded by neighbors who composed a who’s who list of old-world Hollywood including Art Linkletter, Liza Minelli, Ronald Reagan, Lauren Bacall, Humphrey Bogart and Bing Crosby. Her father, also a United States Navy rear admiral, counted John Wayne among his best friends.

Later in life, Melinda reconnected with Ronald Reagan. Since she and the future president had once been neighbors, she attended a rally during his candidacy. She was delighted to be given the opportunity to speak with him and to learn that he not only remembered her but fondly recalled her mother as well.

Read more: Melinda Van Dyck: Life on Stage and on Horseback

By Louise Dando for Equine Info Exchange

Equestrians around the world may have different opinions on many topics, but all agree on one universal experience: falling or being thrown from a horse is the worst part of riding. Whether seasoned or novice, all agree that this common experience can be frightening, embarrassing and annoying—sometimes, all in the same moment. Despite this, I find consolation in the knowledge that it happens to everyone. These celebrities all have taken tumbles off of their horses. Read on and decide: who do you think suffered the worst fall?

Johnny Depp - During the filming of The Lone Ranger, Johnny Depp was thrown from his horse and narrowly missed being trampled. As the horses picked up speed, Depp's steed started bucking, causing the actor to lose his grip and fall to the side. The horse continued to gallop as Depp clung to its mane, before eventually falling onto the ground. In an interview with the Daily Mail, Depp said “There was one moment in particular where it got unpleasant… My horse decided to jump a couple of obstacles in the desert but the horse was unaware that the saddle was fake - to give the effect that I was riding bareback. So when we came down the saddle slipped and I went to the left, and grabbed the mane of the horse. And then the next thing I saw were these very muscular horse legs, this death machine, and one word popped into my head: "Hooves". I figured fear would kick in but it didn't, I was very calm.”

Audrey Hepburn had a bad riding accident while filming the western The Unforgiven in 1959. Her horse was spooked by one of the crew members and the pregnant actress was thrown, breaking her back in four places. Also, one of her feet suffered a bad sprain. Hepburn recovered in six weeks from the back and ankle injuries and was able to finish filming — but sadly, the fall caused her to miscarry her baby. Fortunately, she did give birth to her first child, Sean, less than a year later.

Read more: Tossed, Kicked and Broken: 10 Celebrities Get Back on That Horse—or Not

By Gene Fowler

New Exhibition Spotlights the Artist’s Love of the Cowboy Way

Andy wore cowboy boots. Who knew? Wait—what? Andy who? If you were alive for very long in the last century, you know this particular Andy only needs one name. Andy Warhol, the pop artist who held a mirror up to American culture, the late, inscrutable hipster-trickster of the avant-garde, liked to slither around Manhattan with his dogs encased in cowpoke couture.

Actually, of course, it’s really no surprise. Cowboy boots…I mean, what’s not to love? The archives at the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, the artist’s hometown, preserve some 27 pairs of Andy’s boots. Half a dozen of ‘em have temporarily headed west to Oklahoma City, where you can admire them right now as part of the exhibition, Warhol and the West, at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum.

Centered around the artist’s last major project before his death in 1987, a portfolio of 10 prints of Old West icons entitled Cowboys and Indians, the show also includes dozens of additional artworks and artifacts that reveal the artist’s lifelong interest in the West. Come July 1, the whole shootin’ match will homestead for a spell at the Tacoma Art Museum, between Puget Sound and Mount Rainier. And while previous exhibitions have touched on aspects of Warhol’s West, Michael Grauer, McCasland Chair of Cowboy Culture and Curator of Cowboy Collections and Western Art at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum, says the current show is unique in its thorough exploration of “Warhol’s love of and devotion to the American West.”

Seth Hopkins, director of the Booth Western Art Museum in Cartersville, Georgia, where Warhol and the West debuted last year, tracks that devotion back to the artist’s childhood in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Born in 1928, much of Andrew Warhola’s earliest experience of the transcendent power of images happened at the Saturday matinee. Tex, Gene and Roy roped the West and saved the ranch, won the gal and sang about the sage on the silver screen. Andy’s boyhood scrapbook of movie star photos, which depicted many of his early cowboy heroes, is included in the exhibition, along with the Roy Rogers alarm clock from his childhood bedroom.

Read more: POP! Goes the West - Andy Warhol Went Thataway

by Hope Ellis-Ashburn

When it came time for artist Joanna Zeller Quentin and her husband to come up with a name for the studio they planned to share, finding a great name proved difficult. “Moose Pants Studio was born out of desperation. Everything that we thought of that was really cool and wonderful and unique was already taken,” Joanna said. “We made a pledge that the first name we came up with that wasn’t already taken would be our studio name, no matter how peculiar it seemed.”

So how did they come up with Moose Pants? “My mother mailed our Christmas presents, and included a matching pair of adorable flannel pajama pants for each of us with a moose print on them,” Joanna said. “Strangely enough, no one had thought of naming their business Moose Pants, so voila!”

After her husband started his own studio, Joanna elected to keep the name. “How could I not?” she teased. “My studio’s name, rather than my art, is often the first question I get asked about,” joked the 39-year-old artist who is based in Dallas, Texas. In all seriousness, the art that Joanna exhibits and sells comes from a love of color, motion, and energy.

“I love to get into a painting and see the marks — the pencil lines, the slap of the brush and the thick application of the paint, the way a hidden color comes to the surface at just the right moment. I live for that,” Joanna said. Among other activities, she’s currently working on commissions, creating original artwork for the galleries that represent her, and experimenting with new subject matter.

In addition to her colorful paintings, Joanna is also known for her highly detailed and dramatic scratchboards. Created using only an Xacto knife, scratchboard involves hours of detailed work scratching away the black surface of the board to display the white clay layer underneath. While it may seem a strange fit next to the exuberant color, Joanna enjoys the soothing meticulous zen work of scratchboard and says that switching back and forth between the two mediums creates a happy artistic balance.

Read more: Joanna Zeller Quentin: Hooked On Horses and Art

by Robert Clark

I apologize to my friends who know racing, but I realize that I have a lot of friends and family that don't. So, here is a crash course in the various levels of races to help you get the story that follows.

Races are divided into categories based upon the quality of the competition, the purse and the prestige, which I think are all related to the entrance qualifications. Typically, the more money a race pays, the better the competition. The highest level of quality are stakes races. In North America we call them graded stakes races and Europe calls them Group races, deeming the highest of those as Grade 1 down through Grade 2 and Grade 3. After that you have allowance races that you might equate to the Triple AAA level of baseball.

Generally, the lowest level in racing are claiming races. Here is the catch, if you are in a claiming race, that means anybody can "claim" your horse from that race. – I In other words, they throw their name in the box with your horse's name and they buy it from you at a set price based upon the race. YES, you can lose your horse by racing him/her in a race! Imagine you own a baseball team and the other teams want your pitcher and the only way they can "steal" him from you, is if you play him. That might be over simplified, but that's claiming in a nutshell.

Here is a collection of some of my favorite works and the stories of how I came to know the horses and their people.

Read more: An Artist's Life: Living Through Horses and Their People

by David Hoffman - The story is true. I spent more than a month checking it out in Tennessee and elsewhere. The book is called Beautiful Jim Key by Miriam Rivas available on Amazon. I am not on horseback rider. But I have been given the opportunity to do several films with people who love and understand horses. Magnificent animals they are. And I have met people who have worked with the intelligence of horses and they all agree that Jim Key could very well be completely true. I love animals as many of the viewers of this video to and deeply admire the unique Bill Key for all the things he did to make Americans aware of animals and especially horses as sentient beings. The movie I describe is not yet a reality but I hope someday it will be. Investment money is what is needed and is, as most of you know, very hard to get.

Read more: The Smartest Horse That Ever Lived - A True Story

by Hope Ellis-Ashburn

The first years of college are typically ones of personal growth. Young adults face the responsibilities of life on their own, managing their finances and making important adult decisions about their future. Lifelong equestrian Olivia Otto’s experiences may be characteristic of many college students, but a day in the life of this 19-year-old entrepreneur is anything but typical.

Olivia owns her own startup company, Olivia Otto Inc., whose product line is named HorseCBD. After receiving encouragement from her father, who worked in the CBD industry, she started the business in mid-2018 with her products going to market in January 2019.

An Investment Horse

Olivia’s interest in CBD traces back to 2017 when she purchased her horse Lorenzo, an 11-year-old Swedish Warmblood show jumper. Lorenzo was originally intended to be her first investment horse, and Olivia was looking forward to the amazing learning experience. However, she quickly fell in love with him and decided he wasn’t going anywhere.

“Unfortunately, Lorenzo showed signs of lameness, inflammation and stiffness almost every day,” Olivia said. She tried everything in the book, including adding extra joint supplements, liniment, expensive wraps and having her vet out almost every weekend. Her father gave her the idea to try CBD on her horse.

Read more: Olivia Otto: How an Investment Horse Changed Her Life

by Hannah Hayden

A horse, a horse! My kingdom for a horse! Horses galloping into battle, horses pulling carriages and wagons, horses jumping over poles, horses dashing down ribbons of racetracks, horses suspecting something in their peripheral vision and thrashing about, horses being sold at the market. Horses have a long history as human companions, athletic partners, and methods of transportation. Of course, then, it should come as no surprise that there is a wealth of art to pay homage to this historical symbiosis between not only the human, but the artist and the horse.

Equestrian Statue of Marcus Aurelius, AD 175

Following the collapse of the Roman Empire, it was not uncommon to see strangely proportioned equestrian statues, often depicting some knight’s legs swinging down from chubby ponies pottering valiantly into battle. The only reason that the Bronze Equestrian Statue of Marcus Aurelius wasn’t melted into coins is that he was mistaken for Constantinople, the first Christian Emperor. Luckily, this standard for equestrian statues has survived: erected in 175 AD, the Equestrian Statue of Marcus Aurelius remains to be an ideal canon for equestrian statues.

Read more: The Artist and the Horse: 10 Equine Works of Art