Donna Howell-Sickles: Art That Re-Envisions the Cowgirl

Western artist and 2007 Cowgirl Hall of Fame inductee Donna Howell-Sickles is renowned for her stirring and vivacious portrayals of the Western lifestyle, especially through the cowgirl heroines who play a starring role in many of her pieces.

Her signature use of charcoal lines and vivid colors breathe life into the main characters of her artwork, who, with an unmistakable energy, entice the viewer to carefully muse upon the stories they reveal. Featured in a variety of mediums, her paintings and designs serve a far greater purpose than just being aesthetically pleasing and hold more wisdom than meets the eye. 

A Pivotal Postcard

In 1972, while she was pursuing her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas, Howell-Sickles came upon a postcard bearing the image of a cowgirl in a vintage style that would steer the direction of her life’s work. The exhilarating image struck her in such a visceral way, it moved her to not only incorporate her roots into her artwork, but to explore the context and symbolism of the cowgirl in art.

“The image was incredibly appealing, but I thought of it as an invented image,” Howell-Sickles says. “I figured it was from early TV, but it actually goes back way earlier than that.”

Cowgirl imagery has been used in media to appeal to a vast audience for a surprisingly long time.

“In Victorian times, they used women and horses and even the cowgirl idea in all kinds of advertisements,” says Howell-Sickles. “[The horsewoman] sold everything from coffee to soap—so it was an idea of a personal freedom that was very appealing.”

Holding up the cowgirl as a role model and translating that idea into popular imagery is nuanced. That’s why Howell-Sickles believes cowgirl imagery can mean anything to anyone.

“It was one of those images that your own mind took over and added whatever romance you needed,” Howell-Sickles says of that initial postcard image. “So, when I saw the cowgirl, she appealed to me because I had pretended as a kid to be that red-lipped heroine racing across the ranch to save the world in one way or another.” 

Translating Roots to Art

Howell-Sickles says her formative life experiences while growing up on 900 acres in the unincorporated farming and ranching community of Sivell’s Bend, Texas, provided her with an internal image of the cowgirl figure as being courageous, brave, capable and competent. 

Cowgirl imagery has also held a dual meaning for Howell-Sickles. On one hand, she thinks of the traditional cowgirl image as being an invented one akin to belonging to a make-believe world, and on the other hand, almost everyone she knew growing up somewhat identified with that imagery.

“So, it had both a real and an unreal quality that I found kind of fascinating,” Howell-Sickles shares. “And later, as I researched the women who helped foster that image back in the late 1800s and early 1900s at the Wild West Shows, and so on—they were fascinating people, and so it just strengthened my bond, and it also pointed out so many ways [the cowgirl image] is both a real and an unreal image, so it can be used to tell so many stories. Because the image itself is a half of a step away from reality; you can say very pro-woman things in a non-offensive manner.”

In a January 2023 interview with the Steamboat Art Museum for its 2023 winter art exhibition, “The New West: The Rise of Contemporary Indigenous and Western Art,” Howell-Sickles describes her overall vision and calling to portray a more multi-faceted and well-rounded view of the cowgirl symbol.

“When I first started making artwork, there weren’t a lot of females depicted in artwork in anything other than very surface-level stereotypic roles,” says Howell-Sickles. “I grew up in a ranching community, and the women I grew up around were complete, total women. They had all kinds of characteristics, and they were vital to our life on the ranch. We couldn’t have done any of it without everybody playing a part. So, when I started doing my artwork and featuring the women of the West, they were a reflection of the women that I knew and the spirit I identified with.”

Classical Mythology Meets Cowgirl Lore

Howell-Sickles often inserts classical mythological symbolism throughout her pieces, such as eight-petaled flowers.

“The eight-petaled flowers are short symbolism for one of the elements of Aphrodite in the concept of not necessarily sexual love, but of agape love: love of life and people,” says Howell-Sickles. “So, when I instilled all of these meanings into all of these shapes for myself—I’m telling stories that may or may not relate to everyone, but to me.”

During the interview with the Steamboat Art Museum, Howell-Sickles described how blending classical mythological symbolism into her artwork helps her better present the story of the cowgirl.

“A lot of my work, especially my early work, had a lot of mythology incorporated into it because the landscape of the West has all those basic elements that mythologies evolve around,” Howell-Sickles said. “They have the relationship of the people to the land, fate, luck and weather. They have the same animals. They have plenty of the same characteristics, so they had the symbolism that went along with a deity—say, Epona with her horses. And her role was to guide you from [this] life into the next through that veil, and she had her guardian dogs around her. Well, that’s a Western story.”

The central figures featured in a drawing or painting should be engaged in an action or manner that gauges the curiosity of the viewer, according to Howell-Sickles. For example, the viewer could be wondering what two characters in a piece are discussing or why a character is laughing.

“I do think there’s a lot of gray art that has been made about every emotion we’ve had as humans,” says Howell-Sickles. “I think we started off doing art, and we’re all still doing it or looking at it, and joy is an emotion that is vital to who we are. [It] tells me as much about a person as what makes them sad or angry. In art, [sadness] doesn’t get a lot of serious treatment—it seems to be fairly light, but to me it’s very important.”

Since Howell-Sickles believes that the joy of the human experience should always be celebrated, she strives to incorporate the emotion into her work.

“In my pieces, I try to think of the women or the men that I’m drawing as people who are aware of who and where they are right now, and they’re there by choice.” 

Viewing Donna Howell-Sickles’ Art

Donna Howell-Sickles and her husband, John Sickles, have lived in Saint Jo, Texas, since 2000. They renovated the historic Davis and Blevins building in their community, now known as the Davis and Blevins Gallery. The home of Howell-Sickles’ art gallery, it also features the work of several other artists. Learn more on the gallery website.

Howell-Sickles’ artwork is represented by Broadmoor Galleries in Colorado Springs, Colo.; Big Horn Galleries in Cody, Wyo., and Tubac, Ariz.; McLarry Fine Art in Santa Fe, N.M.; and Ann Korologos Gallery in Basalt, Colo. 

Her work is also featured in the prestigious art collections of the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, the Booth Western Art Museum, the Tucson Museum of Fine Art, Western Spirit: Scottsdale’s Museum of the West, the C.M. Russell Museum, and the National Museum of Wildlife Art.

Most recently, Howell-Sickles has collaborated with Jodi Weishaar Hendrickson, the founder of Fringe Scarves. Howell-Sickles’ art is featured in the must-have, limited-edition, Fringe Scarves Artists Collection.

Learn more about Howell-Sickles and where to find her art here.

This article about Donna Howell-Sickles appeared in the February 2024 issue of Western Life Today magazine. Click here to subscribe!

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