<\/p>\n
Dripping paint onto her saddle shoes and poodle skirts was common for 6-year-old Veryl Goodnight, a budding artist supplied with a paint-by-numbers horse kit.<\/p>\n
As a young child in the early 1950s in Lakewood, Goodnight would sit for hours drawing and painting horses. And when she went outside to play in winter, she was sculpting horses, of course, out of fallen snowflakes.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom as far back as I can remember, my dad would introduce me as, \u2018This is my daughter, the artist,'\u201d Goodnight explained. \u201cI\u2019ve never had an identity other than being the artist.\u201d<\/p>\n
Throughout grade school, all of her assignments and reports, from history class to science class, included horses.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was the girl drawing horses in English,\u201d she said. \u201cI just wanted to be an artist.\u201d<\/p>\n
And she was, citing her reputation as class artist from first grade through high school. And while neither of her parents were artists, both were very supportive, she said, even when paint was dripped or smeared onto her school clothes.<\/p>\n
Loving animals, art<\/p>\n
\u201cI was born with two things,\u201d she said. \u201cLoving animals and loving art. I cannot separate the two from one another.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fast-forward some 60 years, and Goodnight \u2013 an internationally acclaimed sculptor and painter \u2013 has bridged the gap between 19th century and 20th century Western heritage and life, said friend and art collector Kathy L\u2019Amour.<\/p>\n
\u201cVeryl will be remembered as one of the most influential contemporary female artists of all time,\u201d said the widow of American novelist Louie L\u2019Amour. \u201cShe\u2019ll be remembered, respected and hold a major place as an American female artist.\u201d<\/p>\n
L\u2019Amour owns approximately a half dozen of Goodnight\u2019s paintings and sculptures. Her favorite is \u201cPassing Times,\u201d a 35-inch tall bronze sculpture completed in 1993 featuring two women on horseback riding in opposite directions. The elder woman depicted with a skirt rides sidesaddle in modesty and dignity as she gazes with curiosity onto a younger woman donning a split skirt and riding astride in a more practical manner.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt reminds me of riding with my grandmother on her ranch when I was a child,\u201d L\u2019Amour said.<\/p>\n
The superb attention to details in Goodnight\u2019s work helps to convey the wonderful stories included in her art, L\u2019Amour said, and if she had more space on her walls and shelves at her ranch east of Mancos, she\u2019d purchase all of Goodnight\u2019s work.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s nothing of hers that I wouldn\u2019t like to have,\u201d she said. \u201cVeryl\u2019s a special artist and a more terrific lady. We\u2019re lucky to have her here in the Mancos Valley. She\u2019s a valuable asset to the local area, and the country.\u201d<\/p>\n
Familial tie to Mancos<\/p>\n
When the artist and her husband, Roger Brooks, moved from Santa Fe to Mancos in 2006, Goodnight said she was surprised to learn that John Wesley Sheek was a founder of the Mancos Valley. The irrigation ditch along the backside of her home about a mile north of Mancos, in fact, is known as Sheek Ditch.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s wild,\u201d she said. \u201cThat\u2019s just crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sheek was the stepbrother and business partner of Texas cattle baron Col. Charles Goodnight. A distant relative of the famed Texan, Goodnight said the celebrated and treasured icon has heavily influenced her work. And not a week goes by that someone doesn\u2019t bring him up in same way, shape or form.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know if people expect more out of me because we share the same name, but the longer he\u2019s dead, the bigger his legend becomes,\u201d she said. \u201cHe was a phenomenal human being, and in a lot of ways my work has contributed to carrying on his history.\u201d<\/p>\n
Four major works have resulted from the family name. In 1982, she completed her first life-size statue, Col. Goodnight\u2019s favorite longhorn cow, \u201cOld Maude.\u201d The artist visited a ranch in Oklahoma to observe cattle during the calving season for inspiration.<\/p>\n
During Col. Goodnight\u2019s adventures along the Goodnight-Loving Trail, more than 10 million cattle were driven north from Texas to Colorado and Wyoming. His lead steer was named, Old Blue. More than 100 years after the steer\u2019s death, its likeness, complete with a bell, was sculptured in 2010.<\/p>\n
The artist also used Col. Goodnight\u2019s wife, Mary Ann, as a muse in 1995 to create \u201cThe Gathering,\u201d which depicts a woman feeding chickens. Three rented chickens were used as models, and they lived on the artist\u2019s studio stage in a bed of straw for weeks, providing both vision and fresh eggs.<\/p>\n
Western artist<\/p>\n
And in 2000, the artist commemorated her ancestor\u2019s role in saving bison from extinction. The life-size sculpture \u201cBack from the Brink\u201d captures Mary Ann bottle-feeding a bison calf as another awaits its turn to feed.<\/p>\n
\u201cVeryl Goodnight captures the history and legacy of the American West in her carefully studied bronzes depicting subjects with far reaching appeal,\u201d said Adam Duncan Harris, a curator at the National Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson, Wyo.<\/p>\n
A featured artist at the museum, Goodnight recently unveiled her \u201cBorn to Run\u201d sculpture at the Wyoming museum. Along with being an artist, she\u2019s also a musher, and used two of her own huskies as models in the piece with hopes the work would convey a better understanding of the physical and behavioral differences between wild canines and dogs.<\/p>\n
\u201cBison, horses and various members of the canine family cavort alongside characters of the human variety in her ever-growing cavalcade of great Western icons,\u201d Harris added.<\/p>\n
A deep, intense love and admiration for all animals \u2013 from eagles and elks to burros and bears \u2013 inspires Goodnight\u2019s naturalist approach to artwork.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love animals,\u201d she said. \u201cI was born loving animals.\u201d<\/p>\n
After four decades, her knowledge of animal anatomy has been finely tuned, and she prefers working with animals in motion. She said finding the balance between the spontaneous reactions of the subject and incorporating those details is always a challenge.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe animals will return again and again to the pose or the composition that I\u2019ve chose,\u201d she said. \u201cThat\u2019s what keeps it exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018The inspiration here\u2019<\/p>\n
Goodnight is one of nine nationally recognized wildlife artist to call the Four Corners home. The landscape and wildlife along with the ranching and mining heritage of the West are all potential subjects.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe inspiration here is incredible,\u201d she said. \u201cThis is an exciting place for someone with an inquiring mind.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jamie Bade, owner of the Goodnight Trail Gallery in downtown Mancos, said it\u2019s a privilege working alongside such an extremely prolific artist and wonderfully kind-hearted person. She described Goodnight as a perpetual student, always studying her subject matter and its importance to the world.<\/p>\n
\u201cVeryl approaches every challenge and task in her life with all of her heart,\u201d Bade said. \u201cShe possesses a quality that all women would admire; she can go from denim to diamonds, as she would say, without a hitch.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bade said Goodnight was the first to introduce her to the art world, and has since posed for multiple sculptures, including the 2009 life-size piece, \u201cA New Beginning.\u201d The work celebrates the role of women in history, particularly that of the Wyoming Territory, which in 1869 was the first to grant women the right to vote.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlthough Veryl predominately sculpts historic pioneer women, each of these figures embodies the strength, dignity and independence that she and women of all ages and times possess,\u201d Bade said. \u201cThe greatest lesson we as woman can learn from Veryl is follow your heart and work hard.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me, it\u2019s an honor to be a part of an amazing collection of artwork that she has produced over the last 40 years,\u201d Bade said. \u201cI\u2019m honored to be a part of something and someone who will go down in history.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018The Day the Wall Came Down\u2019<\/p>\n
Goodnight is probably best known for her piece, \u201cThe Day the Wall Came Down,\u201d a tribute to the fall of the Berlin Wall. The 7-ton monument to freedom features five horses jumping over the rubble of the Berlin Wall.<\/p>\n
The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency awarded her its \u201cAgency Seal Medallion\u201d for the sculpture.<\/p>\n
Despite the recognition, Goodnight modestly said she is not the hero. She said she was a mere surrogate for the C.I.A. honor, insisting the true honorees are each of the CIA officers who have died in the line of duty to help keep America free.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo this day, their names cannot be bared, so they are the ones who deserve the gold medal,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m just fortunate to have a sculpture that in some way commemorates their work.\u201d<\/p>\n