Artists Nominated for NMWA’s 2027 Women to Watch: A Book Arts Revolution
Wyoming’s 2027 Women to Watch
Nomination Process
Wyoming Curator Beth Venn selected 4 Women to Watch artists to represent our state, and NMWA will select one artist from this group to be featured in the upcoming national exhibition Women to Watch: A Book Arts Revolution.
Jodie Atherton
Sculptress | Laramie
Sarah Ortegon HighWalking was born in Denver, CO to a Basque preacher father, and an eastern Shoshone and northern Arapaho native mother. Ortegon HighWalking grew up with eleven siblings in a home where bible studies were strict, yet each summer would be spent more freely on the Wind River reservation in Wyoming with her mother’s family, learning about the history and culture of her people. At age seventeen, Ortegon HighWalking was disowned by her father, which made her seek further connection with her mother’s side of the family, spending more and more time at the Wyoming reservation. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Metropolitan State University of Denver in 2013, also spending time abroad studying art history in Italy. The artist received her hiking and instructing certificate from National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) in 2019 and has led courses through the Wind River Mountain range for up to a month at a time.
Ortegon HighWalking learned traditional beadwork from her mother as a young teenager, enjoying the art and storytelling as part of the process of creativity. The artist felt most in her element when learning about spiritual practices of her indigenous heritage, and she found that all the art that she produced naturally referenced this history. In 2013, after being crowned Miss Native American USA, she toured with the Native Pride Dancers, which was funded by US embassies to teach about Native American culture around the world. A dancer, performer, actor, and painter, Ortegon HighWalking expresses herself through her indigenous lens in each of her mediums. In 2020, Ortegon collaborated with Choctaw artist Jeffery Gibson and performed in Times Square, NY for the Midnight Moment titled She Never Dances Alone. Her contemporary take on traditional indigenous arts combines beadwork, painting, and performance.
Ortegon HighWalking’s work has been shown across Wyoming and Colorado and will be included in the exhibition Women to Watch at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, DC in 2024. The artist was featured in an Emmy nominated PBS story titled The Art of Home; a Wind River Story and has numerous performance projects on the horizon. Ortegon HighWalking is currently the assistant director of Human Resources for Native American Rights Fund (NARF), a 50-year-old firm that works to preserve tribal existence and protect its resources.
Learn More: Sarah’s Art | Wyo Humanities podcast with Sarah
Oakley Boycott
Multi-disciplinary Artist | Lander
Katy Ann Fox grew up in Grangeville, a north-central Idaho town with a population of 3500. After high school, Fox majored in Business Economics with a minor in Art at the University of Idaho, graduating in 2009. Fox then moved to San Francisco to pursue her art practice, earning a Master’s in Fine Art at the Academy of Art University in 2012.
In San Francisco, Fox grew deeply inspired by painter Edward Payne and classic oil painting. After graduation, Fox looked to move to a place in the west where she could find a stronger connection to the land, with wide open spaces that hold nature’s traces left behind. She moved to Jackson Hole, WY that year, where for over a decade she continues to impact, and be impacted, by the community.
In Katy Ann Fox’s work, we see attention and reverence given to places and spaces otherwise overlooked. Her paintings often contain imagery of weathered buildings, cracked concrete grounds, or electrical boxes, all metaphors for the many quiet places and objects that connect us and hold community together. In her work, she depicts optimism, modesty, respect, and harmony through a deep understanding of oil painting, color harmony, composition, and texture. The artist is a continuous explorer, delving into other mediums such as printmaking, pottery, and textile.
Fox has been the recipient of numerous awards and recognitions, including Artist of the Year in 2015 at the Art Association of Jackson Hole, artist in residence in Goldfield, NV, a vast desert ghost town, selected for a permanent mural in downtown Jackson Hole by Jackson Hole Public Art, and a featured artist in an exhibition commemorating women’s suffrage at the Jackson Hole Historical Society. Her work has appeared on the Jackson Hole Still Works Great Grey Gin label, which is sold nationwide. In 2022 the artist opened a gallery and studio in Driggs, Idaho, where she exhibits her work, as well as artists whom she is inspired by.
Learn More: Katy Ann’s Art | Wyo Humanities podcast with Katy Ann
Katie Christensen
Metalsmith | Laramie
Mixed media artist Leah Hardy grew up in eastern Kansas, where she recalls how she and her father would hunt morels in the hilly plains. Accustomed to looking down at the micro view during hikes, the young Hardy would often collect bugs and sticks to take them home and create dioramas and assemblage artworks. As an uninhibited five-year-old, she declared to her parents that she would become an artist, making the statement true by studying art throughout high school, and receiving her Bachelor of Fine Art in 1987 from the University of Kansas, and a Master’s in Fine Art from the University of Indiana in 1990.
Hardy’s long journey to become a metalsmith with an oeuvre known for anthropomorphizing insects comes from her belief that artists can amplify tiny moments in life.
Originally a ceramicist, her desire to make delicate yet strong sculptures inspired her shift to metalwork. Nearly thirty years ago Hardy and her husband moved to Wyoming, where Hardy taught, eventually creating the Metalsmithing Program in 2009 in the Visual Arts Department at the University of Wyoming. Employing insect-inspired forms that become metaphors for the present human condition, Hardy’s works are a springboard for conversation.
Hardy’s career has included teaching University of WY art courses and conducting research on traditional metalsmithing techniques in northern India. In 2017, Hardy was an invited Visiting Artist at the University of South Australia, Adelaide. Exhibited nationally and internationally, Hardy’s intimately scaled mixed media sculpture has garnered numerous awards and inclusions in books, periodicals, juried and invitational exhibitions. Residencies have taken Hardy to Australia, New Zealand, China, and India. Hardy’s work is in public and private collections in the US, China, Czech Republic, New Zealand, Australia, Europe, and India. In 2023, Hardy and her husband retired from teaching and moved to New Mexico for new adventures and art creation.
Learn More: Leah’s Art | Wyo Humanities podcast with Leah
Kayla Clark
Print Artist | Laramie
Bronwyn Minton is a multi-disciplinary artist, educator, curator, and arts leader living in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Though Minton grew up in southern Vermont and New Hampshire, she made Wyoming home every summer beginning at age ten, attending and later working at a summer camp in the Wind River Range where her mother had once worked as well. Her parents, educators and artists, encouraged Minton to experiment in the arts throughout her life, which fostered her curiosity and desire to make objects in all different mediums. Minton received a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design, and her MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute. Though she made cities like Portland and New York home, she found herself moving to Jackson, Wyoming in 1992. For 13 years, Minton worked at the National Museum of Wildlife Art, later working as the executive director at the Art Association of Jackson Hole.
Minton’s artworks and installations convey notions related to human interaction within the natural world. Creating from both a macro and micro lens, her mixed media work consists of drawing, animation, photography, sculpture, clay, printmaking, and interactive installations. Using simple forms inspired by the patterns and textures found in nature, her work exploits radically different scales, from the microscopic to the monumental, bringing attention to how we each individually fit into, and construct, our own connections to the natural world.
Minton’s works have been shown nationally and internationally and can be found in public and private collections. She is the recipient of the Wyoming Governor’s Arts Award, two Wyoming Arts Council Visual Arts Fellowships, a Wyoming Arts Council Visual Arts Fellowship Honorable Mention, and the Cultural Council of Jackson Hole’s Creative Pulse Award.
Learn More: Bronwyn’s Art | Wyo Humanities podcast with Bronwyn
“With this gorgeous state as their inspiration, our artists are telling powerful stories through their art. I’m so excited to elevate these 5 artists through their nomination to this exhibit.”
— Tammi Hanawalt
Beth Venn
Consulting Curator | Wyoming
Five Wyoming women artists have been nominated by Wyoming-based consulting curator Dr. Tammi Hanawalt, one of which will be selected by NMWA to be featured in the national and international exhibition in Washington, D.C.
“I’m so excited to elevate these 5 artists through their nomination to this exhibit, and in turn I hope to raise the profiles of all artists creating in our beautiful state of Wyoming.”