'Cowgirls: Women of Western Art' documentary centers women who make and inspire Western art

Towards the beginning of a new documentary called “Cowgirls: Women of Western Art,” a narrator declares: “The West asks for truth.”

For too long, the documentary goes on to argue, Western art hasn’t been truthful in the scenes it depicts, nor in the cohort of artists who are generally recognized for those depictions.

Women have been vastly underrepresented in the genre, and filmmaker Marc Sternberg set out to introduce the world to dozens of female artists whose work paints — or in some cases, sculpts — a different version of the West than the one we’re often shown.

Sternberg’s film screens this Friday at the Sigler Western Museum in Wickenberg, and he spoke with The Show about it.

Full conversation

STERNBERG: Men and women both settled the West. So it wasn’t like only the men went and conquered the West. They brought their families with them. The wives were very much a part of, and sometimes the husband would die and the woman would take over the whole estate and have to really run this very difficult life.

So women were a part of the story, but somehow they haven’t been part of the Western art narrative.

DINGMAN: Yes. Well, it reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from one of the artists in the film. It’s a quote from Deborah Fellows, and she says women’s perspective is softer, but women are also tougher because they had to be.

STERNBERG: She was one of my favorite interviews in the whole project. Absolutely wonderful sitting in her living room and having that conversation. And her husband — I mean, she’s a world famous artist herself — and her husband’s also been the leader of Cowboy Artists of America, which is significant for the male artists in the field.

So he’s sitting there listening to it. And she’s a sculptor, so she’s a woman sculptor. And she tackles monument-sized bronzes. So she’s doing heavy lifting, very manual work and beautiful artistry. And then she says that women have that softer side.

So it just really struck me knowing the medium, knowing her skill level, knowing the setting and really knowing what the narrative of the story is really telling and shaping. I thought it really hit the nail on the head for me.

DINGMAN: Well, so let’s talk about the origin story for you in wanting to pursue making this film. As I understand it, it has to do with a visit you made to a museum to see some Western art. And you noticed something seemed a little bit off-kilter about the way the exhibition was constructed.

STERNBERG: Exactly, yeah. So I grew up in Washington, D.C., and we moved out when I was in the middle of high school from D.C. to Arizona, Scottsdale. And my mom became a docent at the Phoenix Art Museum. So I was enamored by the Western art wing of the Phoenix Art Museum because it was all new to me.

And one day there was an exhibit, a traveling exhibit called "Women of the West." And it struck me — first of all, the art was gorgeous, so I absolutely loved it. But I was struck by the title. Why was there a need for a women’s exhibit in an art museum? And I just went down the rabbit hole of researching it and really trying to understand the answer to that question.

And it was because representation typically is 10% or less for women artists in all genres and globally for museum work. And so there’s a reason there was a traveling exhibit for women’s work to have more of that representation. And if I didn’t know that, I felt like an audience also wouldn’t know that information.

So I thought this could be a great concept for telling a narrative, that I could learn something while discovering the answer.

Marc Sternberg

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Handout

DINGMAN: Yeah. And it’s interesting, we also see in the film the work that artists themselves have done to try to circumnavigate these barriers. One of them is — a couple of the artists tell you that their solution was to work under gender-neutral names.

STERNBERG: That was a big one that I heard. And that’s one of the things that I felt like was the reason I didn’t know there was a problem, is I never noticed on the name tags, they’re sometimes very ambiguous. If there’s only a first initial last name, you have no idea what the gender is of that artist.

But that’s the case in other genres, too, or other mediums, like authors. I think in the film industry, there’s also examples that are similar to that. So, it’s kind of a natural thing that happens when they’re trying to break those barriers.

DINGMAN: Yes. But then there’s also this interesting wrinkle to it that an artist named — I believe her name is Gladys de Moras. Am I saying that correct?

STERNBERG: Yeah. Roldan-de-Moras. Yep.

DINGMAN: She ends up going, I think, by her middle name for a period of time, so as not to be so obviously known as a female artist. But she tells this very interesting story about getting her work displayed while she’s using this more gender-neutral name.

And then because it’s being displayed, a critic comes to see it and is kind of describing to a group of people around him the intent of this artist on the wall, who he assumes is male. And she hears what he’s saying, and she’s like, “That’s not what I was going for at all.” [LAUGHS]

So it’s like there’s kind of two levels of removal for her, it seems like in that moment. One, she’s not going by her actual name. And two, her art is being misinterpreted.

STERNBERG: Yeah. And I think that was the catalyst for the change. So now she includes both of her last name, so her husband’s last name as well as hers, to kind of re-own that idea. But that was absolutely the catalyst for her realizing, wait, am I actually solving this problem, or am I contributing to it?

DINGMAN: Yeah. I was also really interested in the subject matter that a lot of the artists that you profile chose. We see a lot of them who are either painting or sculpting horses or saddles.

And one of the artists that you speak to tells you that part of the reason for that is that it took until the mid-19th century for women to even be allowed into art schools. And that then when they were, they weren’t allowed to be in the room with nude models, so they had to go to things like horses in order to learn anatomy.

STERNBERG: That was Felice House, and she’s an art historian. She was a great interview. I think the subject matter is such a fascinating additional question. What is the subject matter that women are portraying? Especially talking to artists that really own the cowgirl.

So they intentionally are putting themselves in these paintings, and sometimes it’s themselves. Actually, two of the artists told me [they put] themselves in these paintings, and it’s because they want to represent that the woman was part of the Western expansion. The women were very much part of the story.

So it’s kind of cliche to say women always paint landscapes or animals or flowers, florals. It’s very much — there’s some women that are really taking the stand and saying, "There needs to be representation of cowgirls in subject matter as well." And I just thought that’s fascinating.

DINGMAN: Well, as a last question for you, Mark, I’m really curious how you were received by these artists as a male documentarian. It’s a notable dynamic, and I’m curious how it took shape in the filmmaking process.

STERNBERG: I think it was very much an outsider that’s curious and genuinely interested. I wanted to actually find the answer. I wanted to understand the problem, and I wanted to learn about them personally. So it came from a very genuine place.

And the fact that I didn’t do a lot of research ahead of time, I didn’t come in with all these facts that I was trying to cram down their throat. I came and I asked questions and let them educate me.

DINGMAN: Right. Well, and of course, because there are some people who might look at the subject matter of a documentary like this and think of these artists as outsiders to Western art. But in fact, they are the insiders. It’s just that, by and large, people have not paid enough attention historically.

STERNBERG: Correct.