"Buckaroo culture" icon Waddie Mitchell receives top award from Nevada Arts Council

From the Nevada Arts Council:

Cowboy poet and Great Basin buckaroo Bruce Douglas “Waddie” Mitchell is the 2012 Nevada Heritage Award recipient. With an extensive history of artistic achievement and teaching, Mitchell continues to advance the significance of our Western heritage and cowboy poetry wherever he appears. His work and life will be featured on our website this fall. Created in 2010, the Nevada Heritage Award honors and recognizes Nevada master folk and traditional artists who, at the highest level of excellence and authenticity, carry forward the folk traditions of their families and communities through practice and teaching.

Mitchell was nominated for the award by the Western Folklife Center in Elko, home of the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering, which notes that he has become "an icon of Nevada, of buckaroo culture and of cowboy poetry itself."

Cody artist featured at Lucky Star Gallery in Reno

"Indian in Lavender" is one of the many portraits by Cody artist Linda Lucy Lunde featured at the Lucky Star Gallery in Reno, Nevada. They are watercolor, etching, pen and ink. The framed size of this one is 15-3/4x14 inches.

Linda is a member of the Cody Country Art League.

Here's some info on the artist from the gallery web site:

This series of Native American Indian portraits by Lunde are stunning. This portrait of a strong and brooding brave is a handsome watercolor matted and framed in beautifully complimentary tones of a muted mauve/lavender and in a metallic gunmetal grey frame.

Call for proposals: Portrait of Nevada's Governor

The State of Nevada invites professional artists with previous experience in commissioned work for an open competition to paint the portrait of Governor Jim Gibbons which will hang in the Nevada State Capitol.

A Request for Proposals (RFP) inviting artists to participate in this
competition to paint, frame and install the painting was recently
issued. The deadline to submit proposals to the Nevada Arts Council is
5:00 p.m. on July 22, 2010.

Copies of the full RFP with details on how to submit are available by
contacting the Nevada Arts Council at 775-687-6680 or by visiting the
Department of Cultural Affairs’ website at http://www.nevadaculture.org/.

Pursuant to Nevada Revised Statute (NRS) 223.121 the portrait must be
painted in oil colors and be appropriately framed. The painting and
framing must be done in the same manner, style and size as the
portraits of former Governors of the State displayed in the Nevada
State Capitol Building in Carson City. The maximum commission fee for
the preparation of the portrait, which must include the frame and
hanging apparatus, is $17,500. An amount not to exceed $2,500 is
available for artist travel required to complete the portrait.

This competition is open to professional artists living in the United
States. Artists must clearly identify proven experience by having
previously completed a minimum of two portraits which were
commissioned by individuals, corporations or units of government and
are comparable to a Governor’s Portrait. Applicants must demonstrate
the ability to complete the project as proposed, within the available
budget and the stated timeline.

A Selection Committee will review all eligible submissions using the
criteria of artistic quality, demonstrated qualifications and ability
to complete the project within the time frame and budget. The
committee will select three finalists from which the Governor will
choose the commission artist.

The Nevada Arts Council of the Department of Cultural Affairs will
manage the artist selection process for the Selection Committee and
develop and manage the artist’s contract. Notification of final
selection will be made by August 20, 2010 and the portrait must be
completed by December 17, 2010.

Pair of Wyoming Arts Council roster artists on stage in Elko Jan. 23-30

Two Wyoming Arts Council roster artists will be performing at the Cowboy Poetry Gathering Jan. 23-30 at the Western Folklife Center in Elko, Nevada. They are Miss V the Gypsy Cowbelle from Cora and Andy Nelson from Pinedale. Coincidentally, they are both Sublette County residents.

Here's some bio info on them:


Andy Nelson is a second-generation farrier who was raised in Oakley, Idaho, and traveled with his father on farrier jobs throughout the Great Basin until he went off to college. He's released one book and three CDs of his poetry and humor. With his brother Jim, Andy co-hosts the award-winning, weekly syndicated radio show "Clear Out West (C.O.W.) Radio." In 2004 Andy was named the Western Music Association's Male Poet of the Year, and for 2009, Andy was awarded the Skinny Rowland Humor Award by the Academy of Western Artists. Andy now lives in Pinedale, Wyoming, where among other things, he and his wife Jaclyn raise horses and children. Visit http://www.cowpokepoet.com/


Miss "V" the Gypsy Cowbelle has lived on a remote ranch in Wyoming for the past 13 years, honing her homesteader skills such as haying and logging with horses, sewing clothes and tack on treadle machines, building saddles and her signature "plank" banjos with hand tools, hunting and canning elk, grocery shopping once a year, concocting herbal remedies and dandelion wine, running pack strings and helping her neighbors trail cattle through the Rocky Mountains. Miss “V” has self-produced four CDs and is currently listed on the Wyoming Arts Council Artist Roster.

You can bring either of these performers to your community through a WAC Arts Across Wyoming grant. For more info, go to the WAC web site at http://www.wyomingartscouncil.org/ and click on "grants" on the left sidebar.