Mancos sculptor and painter Veryl Goodnight will be inducted to the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame in Fort Worth, Texas.
Goodnight joins a distinguished group of about 220 cowgirls from all over the American west that includes former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. The Hall of Fame inducts four or five women each year, who are selected through a rigorous process, according to a press release from the Hall of Fame.
Goodnight said she is grateful to the people of southwest Colorado for supporting her throughout the years.
“People around here are wonderful and supportive of my work,” she said.
Prior to her induction in October, Goodnight’s painting and sculpting work will be featured at the museum in a retrospective titled “No Turning Back” starting July 22.
The retrospective covers Goodnight’s 45-year career and will feature 17 sculptures and 11 paintings, focusing on western women, horses and wildlife.
“Since it’s a retrospective, it covers my whole career,” Goodnight said.
The title of the retrospective comes from a 2011 book on Goodnight’s work that was named after one of her sculptures of a pioneer woman looking back over a wagon wheel toward a trail. Several of the pieces feature similar subjects and will be paired together, and some will be accompanied by poetry, she said.
The oldest sculpture in the retrospective, from 1986, is titled “Shepherds of the High Plains,” and features a sheep herder and border collie. That will be paired with a painting from three years ago titled “Summer’s End,” which depicts a wildlife scene in the San Juan mountains, Goodnight said.
“Showdown,” a painting of two wild horses fighting, will be paired with a bronze sculpture titled “Rivalry,” which depicts a similar scene. An oil painting, “Olga’s Return,” features a scene of a pioneer woman riding on a trail with several horses, will be paired with the bronze sculpture “Prospector’s Partner,” which features a horse with no rider.
“The bulk of my career has been painting, and the last five years have been just one sculpture per year,” Goodnight said. “This is a first with pairing the two.”
Some of the pieces to be featured in the retrospective have been part of private collections, but have been loaned back from the owners for the Hall of Fame display, Goodnight said.
Other 2016 Cowgirl Hall of Fame inductees include, Marilyn Williams Harris, an Arizona rancher and environmentalist; Frances Rosenthal Kallison, a Texas rancher who died in 2004 and worked to document Jewish history in the Lone Star State; and Pat North Ommert, a skilled trick rider from California.
“These four remarkable women join a legendary group of existing honorees at the Museum,” said Hall of Fame Executive Director Patricia Riley.
jklopfenstein@the-journal.com
