PrintNancy Cawdrey’s Crown Jewels
EnlargeNancy Dunlop Cawdrey, whose dye-on-silk painting The Crown Jewels was one of the 14 works selected to be part of The Official Centennial Art of Glacier National Park exhibit [click here to read the story from the January 2010 issue of C&I], is not the first artist to form a symbiotic relationship with the National Park Service. Artists have been simultaneously inspired by the American wilderness and helping to protect it since the 1880s. Nineteenth-century painters and photographers often accompanied surveying expeditions and returned East with images that not only provoked awe and reverence but were also used by legislators in Congress to establish the need for a national park system.
EnlargeWhile Cawdrey’s painting will directly benefit Glacier National Park (the centennial artwork will be auctioned off in May with proceeds going to the park), she herself has been inspired by her Montana home. The artist, who has lived in the state for 30 years, often paints local ranch life and wildlife, including a favorite subject, the American bison.
Her painting Tatonka, which is named for the Lakota word for bull bison, is part of the permanent collection at the C.M. Russell Museum in Great Falls, Montana, and is currently on display in The Bison: American Icon, Heart of Plains Culture exhibit.
Originally a watercolorist, Cawdrey started painting on silk when she discovered the unique properties of the natural fiber. “When I paint on silk, I participate but don’t control the process,” she says. “To do it in a controlled way is against its nature.” By working with color in innovative ways, Cawdrey hopes to encourage others to look at wilderness with new eyes and to support the preservation of America’s “crown jewels,” our legacy of the national parks.
GALLERIES:
• Big Horn Galleries, Tubac, Arizona, 520.398.9209, www.bighorngallery.com.
• Frame of Reference, Bigfork, Montana, 406.837.7329, www.frameref.com.
• Hayden Hays Gallery, Colorado Springs, Colorado, 719.577.5744, www.haydenhaysgallery.com.
•Rain Dance Gallery, Durango, Colorado, 970.375.2708, www.raindancegallery.com.
West Lives On, Jackson, Wyoming, 307.734.2888, www.westliveson.com.
Issue: March 2010
