News Since the Last Newsletter www.CowboyPoetry.com Cowboy Poetry at the BAR-D Ranch

Third-generation Montana rancher and poet Wallace McRae is featured in the Summer, 2008 Range Magazine, in an article, "A Day with McRae," by photojournalist Jessica Brandi Lifland. In words and photos, the piece focuses on the McRae's Rocker Six Cattle Company, run by Wallace McRae, his son Clint McRae, and their families.

Read more about what else is in the current issue of Range Magazine here, and visit the Range Magazine web site for special on-line features and more.

[photo of Wallace McRae from Elko, 2008, by Jeri L. Dobrowski; see her gallery of western performers and others here.

Posted 5/15

Popular Utah singer and songwriter Brenn Hill will appear with the Reno Philharmonic Orchestra on May 17, 2007.

From an official Brenn Hill media release:

Award winning Utah singer-songwriter Brenn Hill makes his debut with a symphony orchestra when he appears with the Reno Philharmonic at the sixth annual Wells Fargo Rhythm & Rawhide Benefit Concert on Saturday, May 17, 2008 at the new Tuscany Ballroom in the Peppermill Hotel Casino in Reno, Nevada. Hill eagerly anticipates this significant moment in his career. “I am honored and excited to be part of this year’s Rhythm & Rawhide concert,” Hill explains. “It will be my first time performing with an orchestra and I look forward to presenting my tunes with Barry Jekowsky at the podium and all those talented musicians around me. It will be wonderful to hear my material from this new perspective, especially with the magnificent arrangements provided by my fellow Utahan Sam Cardon, who seems really to understand where my songs come from”....Over the years Rhythm & Rawhide, which is a collaboration of the Reno Rodeo Foundation and the Reno Philharmonic Association, has brought together unique music combinations of the symphonic orchestra with western singers and cowboy poets. Rhythm & Rawhide’s funds go to the Reno Rodeo Foundation and the Reno Philharmonic Association to benefit children and the arts in northern Nevada...

North Dakota rancher, writer, and cowboy poet Rodney Nelson will also perform at the event.

See more about Brenn Hill in our feature here and at his web site. Read more about Rodney Nelson in our feature here.

Posted 5/9

The Booth Western Art Museum in Cartersville, Georgia, announces Space, Silence, Spirit: Maynard Dixon's West, an exhibition May 3-July 27, 2008.

From the official announcement:

More than half a century after his death, Western artist Maynard Dixon prepares to make his Southern debut. On May 3, the Booth Western Art Museum debuts Space, Silence, Spirit: Maynard Dixon's West. This exhibition is the
first major exhibition of Maynard Dixon's work in the southeast. The exhibition brings together works from two of the largest collections of Dixon's work—the collection of Arizona West Gallery owner A.P Hays and the collection of Brigham Young University Museum of Art in Provo, Utah.

The A.P Hays collection consists of more than 90 smaller sketches, drawings, paintings, and personal items. Arranged chronologically, these works trace Dixon's career from his early days as an illustrator to visionary painter of landscapes and beyond. "A.P. Hays' collection of Dixon paintings and drawings span a period of almost 5 decades, chronicling the artist's experiences," said Jeff Donaldson, director of Curatorial Services
at the Booth Museum.

Brigham Young University Museum of Art holds the most important Dixon repository in the world. Many of Dixon's great social realist works were purchased by an economist from Brigham Young University along with nearly 60
other Dixon paintings, forming the core of their collection. Fifteen masterworks from this collection were chosen for this exhibition, which represent the range of Dixon's subjects: cowboys, Native Americans, landscapes, allegorical works, and social realism.

Dixon was born in 1875 and raised in Fresno, California. In the 1890s, Dixon moved to San Francisco to attend art school. Although he never finished school, Dixon pursued a career as an illustrator. Later Dixon became dismayed with the increasing commercialization of the field, feeling he was being paid to "lie about the West" and sought refuge in numerous trips to the Western "back country." Although he often scorned trends and movements, the modernist movement obviously influenced Dixon's mural and easel paintings of the 1920s and 1930s.

Now, scholars and collectors of the twenty-first century believe Dixon to be one of the greatest Western artists of all time. His talent to combine the tenets of modernism with Western subject matter satisfies both critics
and collectors alike.

Find more information about the exhibition here at the Booth Western Art Museum web site.

The Western Writers of America recently awarded the respected Spur Award for Best Western Documentaryto Jayne McKay & Daniel Dixon for Maynard Dixon: Art and Spirit. Don Edwards performs the voice of Maynard Dixon in the documentary.

[image: © Maynard Dixon, Sasabe, 1941, oil on canvas, 12 x 16”, Collection of A.P. Hays; courtesy of the Booth Western Art Museum]

Posted 4/30

An extensive April 20, 2008 article in the New York Times features the work of Texas photographer Robb Kendrick, tintypes of cowboys and ranchers—men and women of today—presented in a century-old process. The article, "You Bet Your Tintype, Buckaroo," by Randy Kennedy begins, "One fairly reliable way to tell if you are in a part of the country where people still herd cattle for a living is the frequent and unself-conscious use of the word cowboy as a verb..."

The New York Times' article includes videos, stills, and audio segments (free registration may be required).

Kendrick's work is collected in his recent book, Still: Cowboys at the Start of the Twenty-First Century.

You can also view sample images here at Still: Cowboys at the Start of the Twenty-First Century publisher's site, the University of Texas Press web site. There is another spread of images here at National Geographic, where they accompany an article on "21st Century Cowboys" by Robert Draper. Visit Robb Kendrick's web site, www.RobbKendrick.com to view more photos, see a video about his tintype process, and to learn more about his work and publications.

See our review here of Still: Cowboys at the Start of the Twenty-First Century.

Posted 4/21

We're pleased to announce the availability of the third annual edition of The BAR-D Roundup.

The BAR-D Roundup: Volume Three showcases contemporary and traditional works, including Robert Service's vintage recording of "The Cremation of Sam McGee"; the poetry of past Texas Poet Laureate Red Steagall, National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellow Wallace McRae, and Montana Governor’s Arts Award for Literature recipient Paul Zarzyski; noted reciters Randy Rieman, Ross Knox, and Jerry Brooks presenting classic poems by Henry Herbert Knibbs, D. J. O'Malley, and Badger Clark; a third annual selection from Grass, the master work of the late Buck Ramsey, an NEA National Heritage Fellow, recognized as the modern spiritual leader of the genre; and eighteen additional offerings from today’s top poets and reciters, including Joel Nelson, Ken Cook, Doris Daley, DW Groethe, Yvonne Hollenbeck, Paul Kern, Linda Kirkpatrick (reciting a Bruce Kiskaddon poem), Deanna Dickinson McCall, Andy Nelson, Susan Parker (reciting an A. V. Hudson poem), Pat Richardson, Georgie Sicking, Bill Siems (reciting a Curley Fletcher poem), Jay Snider (reciting a Luther A. Lawhon poem), Rhonda Sedgwick Stearns, Hal Swift (reciting a James Barton Adams poem), Mick Vernon (reciting an S. Omar Barker poem), and Smoke Wade. The CD includes a radio Public Service (PSA) Announcement by Francie Ganje, radio broadcaster and director of the Heritage of the American West show.

The CD cover is a photo of Perry Preston ("P. P.") Dickinson, circa 1912, Texas cowboy. Perry Preston was the grandfather of Deanna Dickinson McCall, and great grandfather of poets and reciters Rusty McCall and Katie-McCall Owens.

The BAR-D Roundup CDs create a growing cowboy poetry archive. CDs are offered to libraries in the Rural Library Project, an important Cowboy Poetry Week outreach program that fulfills our mission to serve the rural Western population. CowboyPoetry.com, Cowboy Poetry Week and the Rural Library Project are programs of the Center for Western and Cowboy Poetry. Center supporters at the Partner level and above receive the CD (and the Cowboy Poetry Week poster by William Matthews). The CD is also available for $20. There's a special offer for the 2007 and 2007 CDs.

Read more about the CD, including on-line notes for each track, in our feature here.

Posted 4/14

From the Autry National Center:

From Theodore Roosevelt to George W. Bush, United States presidents have used the powerful iconographic symbol of the heroic American cowboy to define themselves and their administrations to the nation and the world. In this election year, the Autry National Center explores the fascinating and ongoing intersection of cowboy culture and presidential politics in Cowboys and Presidents, through September 7, 2008.

This timely exhibition includes many historically important images and artifacts that are associated with a host of American presidents, such as Benjamin Harrison’s longhorn chair; Theodore Roosevelt’s personal photo album of his ranch; Calvin Coolidge’s electric exercise horse and cowboy outfit; Franklin D. Roosevelt’s spurs—a gift from Roy Rogers; Lyndon B. Johnson’s famous Stetson hat; Ronald Reagan’s cowboy boots adorned with a map of Texas; Bill Clinton’s childhood drawings based on the film High Noon; and the Saddle of Independence, given to George W. Bush in memory of the 9/11 attacks. Motion pictures, television, radio, and music enhance the exhibition and visitors are invited to cast their votes on thought-provoking issues in interactive voting booths. Presidential connections to California and the West can be found throughout the exhibition, including highlights on Ronald Reagan, Hollywood, and Western trips by many of the featured presidents.
....

Find more information in interactive features for the exhibit at the Autry National Center web site.

[pictured: a young Lyndon B. Johnson, photo courtesy of the Autry Center]

Updated 5/9