For immediate release

Buffalo Bill Art Show & Sale
Cody, Wyoming
Contact Diane Ballard, director
1-888-598-8119, or (307) 587-5002
art@codychamber.org

Editor’s Notes:
Sales figures will be released on Monday.
For images of award-winning artwork, contact Mark Bagne, (307) 527-5811, (307) 587-8111, bagne@wyoming.com.

Cody Art Show Announces Winners

Cody, Wyo. – The 2004 Buffalo Bill Art Show & Sale has announced the winners of its eight major painting and sculpture awards, including several cowinners resulting from unusual tie votes by the judges.

Carrie L. Ballantyne of Sheridan, Wyo., emerged from Cody’s 23rd annual weekend celebration of the arts as the recipient of the William E. Weiss Purchase Award. Her painting will become part of the permanent collection of the Buffalo Bill Historical Center – host of the show and the major recipient of proceeds from Friday’s live auction and a series of silent auctions and a Quick Draw on Saturday.

Ballantyne’s 26.375 x 17.25 inch color pencil called “Great Basin Buckaroo” depicts a proud, colorful and classy modern buckaroo with traditional vaquero influence. Known for her paintings of family, friends, neighbors and working people of the West, Ballantyne teaches at Scottsdale Artists School in Arizona and the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City.

Krystii Melaine of Gunning, Australia, won the 2004 Painting Award for a 16 x 32 inch oil, “Sea of Gold,” showing two cowboys enjoying a calm moment in the afternoon sun, trotting on horseback through grass that appears like a sea of gold. Acclaimed as one of Australia’s best wildlife and portrait artists, Melaine visits North America twice yearly to research the wildlife and cowboys that inspire her work.

This year’s Sculpture Award went to Montana artist T.D. Kelsey for a 21 x 25 x 18 inch bronze called “Bull Market,” depicting a cowboy on horseback being hurled into the air by a charging bull. Kelsey says of this piece, “Sometimes experience comes with hard knocks.” Known for monumental commissions across the West, Kelsey spends most of his time at his studio and ranch outside of Pompeys Pillar, Mont.

The Buffalo Bill Art Show & Sale also gave an honorable mention in the sculpture category to Robert Deurloo of Salmon, Idaho, for a 26 x 24 x 22 inch bronze, “River Rendezvous,” depicting a pair of river otters frolicking in a beaver pond near Sun Valley, Idaho.

Selection of the 2004 Artist’s Choice Award resulted in a tie between Cyrus Afsary of Scottsdale, Ariz., and Bruce Graham of Clearmont, Wyo.

Afsary entered a 20 x 24 inch oil, “Dixie Forest, Utah,” revealing what he calls the “amazing spiritual serenity of one of the most beautiful pine forests in the world.” Afsary has won numerous awards during his career, including Best of Show at the CM Russell Auction in Great Falls, Mont.

Graham also won the favor of about 100 fellow artists with his 24 x 30 inch oil, “Testing the Waters,” showing a horse wading in a shallow pond on a ranch in northern Wyoming. Like all of his paintings, the piece endeavors to capture the color and light behind the subjects that matter most to him: horses, cowboys, and scenes of the West.

About 800 art show guests were similarly deadlocked in their selection of the People’s Choice Award, resulting in another unusual tie between M.C. Poulsen of Cody, Wyo., and Karmel Timmons, of Elbert, Colo.

Poulsen’s 20 x 16 inch oil, “The Red Hat,” is dedicated to the heart and spirit of the strictly American legacy of the mountain man. Poulsen’s passion for art bloomed as a child when his mother used the Akron Art Institute as his babysitter. He received formal training in Hawaii, and continues to study masterworks throughout the world.

Timmons submitted a 16 x 22 inch pencil, “The Buckaroo,” a study of the relationship between buckaroo and horse forged by training methods honed through generations. Timmons is known for the detail, texture and mood of her pencils, inspired by the landscapes and horses on the surrounding ranches near her Colorado home.

Nancy Dunlop Cawdrey of Big Fork, Mont., won the art show’s first annual Dean St. Clair Memorial Award for a painting called “Red Night, Cowgirl’s Delight” that she created in 60 minutes during Saturday’s Quick Draw on the grounds of the Historical Center. This people’s choice award honors the memory of the late western painter Dean St. Clair of Del Norte, Colo., who died last year.

Art Show judges announced a surprise award, the Gerald Peters Gallery Award for a Work on Paper, to Sheila Rieman, of Sentinel Butte, N.D., for her 20 x 29 inch pastel, “Daybreak in Yellowstone.” And the first annual Mike Maier Memorial Award, named for the originator of the Open Box M pochade box, went to Laramie, Wyo., artist Joe Arnold, a plein-air painter known for his mountain panoramas.