From the days she could pick up a pencil and a piece of paper, Maggie Booth’s love for horses — and drawing them and other animals — has been a consuming passion.
As the recent Douglas High School graduate prepares to step into life at Casper College with 15 credits of art classes ahead of her in a couple of weeks, she remains fixed on a goal of becoming a graphic artist.
She’s also getting noticed for her stunning wildlife art that is already winning awards.
“From when I was really little, I really liked drawing. I didn’t get into painting until a little bit later,” she told Cowboy State Daily. “I was definitely a horse girl, so I would draw horses a lot. Horses and other animals were my main subjects.”
At 18, she already has had some noteworthy success. Her art has been chosen by Wyoming first lady Jennie Gordon for three years straight in a statewide competition to hang in the governor’s residence.
She also placed second in the Western Governor’s Association’s 2025 Celebrate the West student contest with high school students from 20 states and territories.
Her Celebrate the West painting titled “Window Shopping” shows a pronghorn off to the side of a road being viewed through the window of a pickup. The truck is shown reflected in the cracked driver’s side rear-view mirror.
The idea for the painting, Booth said, was inspired by memories of watching wildlife out the truck window with her dad.
“I just like seeing antelope out of the windows of my truck as I’m driving home,” she said. “When I was little, my dad and I would always talk about them, like, ‘Oh, that’s a big buck.’
“I wanted to make a painting that kind of captured those moments with me and my dad, or out antelope hunting — kind of those experiences.”
From the days she could pick up a pencil and a piece of paper, Maggie Booth’s love for horses — and drawing them and other animals — has been a consuming passion. Her stunning wildlife art is already turning heads and winning awards. (Courtesy Jennie Gordon via Facebook) 
Maggie Booth’s drawing of a horse apparently ready for the saddle and called “Waiting” also was chosen for display at the Wyoming governor’s residence. (Courtesy Maggie Booth) 
Maggie Booth’s welded sculpture “Hopper” was chosen for display in the Wyoming governor’s residence. (Courtesy Maggie Booth) 
(Courtesy Maggie Booth) 
Maggie Booth’s painting called "Big Game" is another work that has graced the governor’s mansion in a past year. (Courtesy Maggie Booth) 
From the days she could pick up a pencil and a piece of paper, Maggie Booth’s love for horses — and drawing them and other animals — has been a consuming passion. Her stunning wildlife art is already turning heads and winning awards. (Courtesy Jennie Gordon via Facebook)
Chosen
Being among the 30 or so works from the 4,000 displayed at the annual competition for the governor’s residence has meant a lot, she said.
This year, Gordon chose Booth’s welded sculpture “Hopper” and a drawing of a horse titled “Waiting.”
The metal grasshopper sculpture is something she tried after seeing a similar type of art online.
“I asked my dad if he had any pipe wrenches, because he worked out in the oil field for 40 years,” she said. “He had one that he used in the oil field, so I took that pipe wrench and made the grasshopper with it.”
The pipe wrench forms the body of the industrial insect, and she welded other pieces of metal onto the wrench to represent the arms, forelegs, middle legs and antennae. Saw blades are used for a portion of Hopper’s back legs.
Booth said she took a welding art class as a freshman in high school, but characterizes herself as not “super good at it.”
She said she enjoys acrylic painting most, but is not afraid to try other art mediums. Pastel paints, watercolors, colored pencils, graphite and some sculpture with clay have also been part of her art.
“I could pick up any medium, I think, and enjoy doing it,” Booth said.
One of her most celebrated works so far is a painting of an elk with a massive rack, looking up over a snow-topped mountain rise with another mountain in the background. Booth titled it “Soft Winter Gaze.”
‘Very Appreciative’
“I was very appreciative toward the first lady because she has chosen one of my pieces for the past three years for state art,” she said, noting that the elk hung in the governor’s residence. “So, I thought that was really cool to be chosen that many times by her. I really appreciated her doing that.”
Booth said after her art is displayed, it is returned to her.
She has made a few prints of her work, but has not had success selling them — yet. The teen wants to continue pursuing her art in a way that may lead to a time when she can sell her work in a gallery.
Booth said she knows she’s not ready for that yet.
The recent graduate is thankful for her middle school and high school art teachers who helped encourage her. She said her high school instructor was willing to help her get her art into the statewide competition.
“Not all art teachers take their kids there,” she said.
For Booth, the art and animals are intertwined in a goal she sees ahead. Her hope is that in five years she’s working as a graphic artist — and that her career leads to being able to own property and put animals on it.
This summer, her march toward a professional career included an internship with a mural artist. She’s helping and learning from him on a mural at the Douglas Railroad Museum. It was her first exposure to painting a mural.
She then used that experience to create two murals at her high school of its Bearcat mascot, which she contracted with the school to do.
From the days she could pick up a pencil and a piece of paper, Maggie Booth’s love for horses — and drawing them and other animals — has been a consuming passion. Her stunning wildlife art is already turning heads and winning awards. (Courtesy Jennie Gordon via Facebook) 
Maggie Booth, 18, said she is heading to Casper College to study graphic design this fall. She said her love of horses and animals fuels her art. (Courtesy Maggie Booth)
Inspiration Helps
As with most artists, inspiration is a key to Booth’s motivation.
“Sometimes I’ll work on a painting for, like, a week straight, a couple of hours a day,” she said. “And other times I won’t paint for a couple of months. It just depends on my motivation level and if I have ideas.”
Booth said her art has never really been fueled by looking at the works of famous artists, though she does have an appreciation for a Colorado artist who also likes to paint horses. Her go-to inspiration remains what she sees close to home.
“I paint a lot of pictures of my horse, and just like my antelope painting, (I enjoy) capturing moments that mean a lot to me,” she said. “And then those things resonate with other people it seems.”
Dale Killingbeck can be reached at dale@cowboystatedaily.com.
