"Vigil" 36 x 24 -charcoal on panel -available through March in Montana Auction

"It's About to Get Western" 24 x 18- charcoal on panel -available through Medicine Man Gallery

​This piece features a Colt 38 special revolver, playing cards, and some antique White Horse Whisky bottles. The bottles were found under the Spade Ranch barn. Because they were produced by White Horse Distillers Lmd., they must have been produced after 1924 in Glasgow, Scotland. I am personally impressed that some cowboys making $40 a month managed to get imported scotch whisky out to western Nebraska.
Spade Ranch cowboys weren't allowed to drink or gamble, but it is documented that it did happen and in one particular case, one cowboy was disgruntled at his losses and did hit another over the head the next morning while working cattle. The injured cowboy died and the perpetrator was convicted of manslaughter, served his time in the Nebraska penitentiary, and then returned to work at the Spade Ranch again. It did used to be the wild west out here, and not that long ago.
This is just a spotlight moment of what a bunkhouse "table" (crate) might have looked like one of those nights at the ranch.​

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Represented By

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2024 Mountain Oyster Club Honorary Artist Member Inductee
​and Best of Show Winner

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Rachel Brownlee

My career in art really started in 2021 at the Mountain Oyster Club show where my work "At the Ready" won Best of Show. Since then I have been busy learning new techniques in drawing and learning how to run a fine art business, but mostly I have been focusing on defining my style and my storytelling technique. It is commonly said that an artist's work reveals what is inside the artist. My work is precise; highly detailed; and exacting, both to create and to look at. In fact, I often feel my work is painful in a way. The detail I create requires such time and effort and mental exertion. Most of my pieces hanging on a wall don't create a feeling of rest like much fine art does; instead, I feel that my work requires a response from it's viewer. The content of my work is the living west as seen through my eyes, so almost all of my pieces feature people I know and my own family ranch. I want my viewers to see that the "historical west" is living and alive today participating in agriculture very nearly as it was 100 years ago. Technically, I have pushed the boundaries of charcoal artwork with my new style of drawing directly onto a gessoed panel and then varnishing it like an oil painting. It allows the viewer to be much closer to the work. It is more intimate. I love my work and I am blessed to be able to stand at my easel every day and depict living legends like my neighbors and the saddles that have worked nearly as long as cowboys have been running cattle in the Nebraska Sandhills.​
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