Morgan “Mo” Sullivan was shocked when the bids just kept getting higher.
She had a figure in mind when her painted pronghorn sculpture went up for live auction earlier this month, but the end result blew her expectations out of the water when bids skyrocketed to $26,000 after a handful of Gillette businesses pooled their funds together.
“I just started crying,” she said. “I was so overwhelmed.”
The public art fundraiser, dubbed the “Parade of Pronghorns,” didn’t get off to the best start after the first shipment was demolished when their delivery truck was blown off the road by a Wyoming windstorm last December, leaving the 500-pound fiberglass forms in a pile of smithereens along the highway.
Part of Sullivan's pride came from knowing that people loved her work, but more so from appreciation for a community that rallied to support local art and the Rockpile Museum — even if they had to wait the better part of a year.
Sullivan’s pronghorn was one of 10 painted and decorated by Wyoming artists as part of the Rockpile Museum Association’s first public art fundraiser. The 10 pronghorn, along with 10 resin skull mounts also painted by local artists, drew in $100,000 for museum displays and programming.
Tara Stoneking, business manager for the museum nonprofit, was pleasantly surprised by the outpouring of support from the community and that more than 200 people turned out for the event. Still, it was a bit of a gamble and something they’d never done.
The form manufacturer, Icon Poly out of Nebraska, rallied and quickly fabricated a new herd in less than two months, but this time the forms were delivered by FedEx in shipping containers.
This cut down on the artists’ time to complete the sculptures, still leaving only a few months to get them done.
But even their destruction felt distinctly Wyoming given the incessant wind and dramatic weather that’s as much a part of the landscape and ruggedness that defines the state and its history, Stoneking said.
Plus, pronghorn tend to get a bad rap, she said, when they’re actually a beautiful animal and the perfect choice given that Wyoming has the highest population of the native animal in the country.
From the start, people seemed to find the idea intriguing, and 26 entrants applied, which they whittled down to 10. The artists received a stipend for their work with general directions to paint their personal stories and what regional history meant to them.
Familiar Landscapes
For Sullivan, a tattoo artist by trade with a photorealistic style who was born and raised in Gillette, this translated to the everyday scenes of her childhood: Cowboys on horses lassoing cattle in fields dotted with Indian paintbrush.
“I wanted to go more of a rustic kind of West and Wyoming that I know with intense sunsets and being around rodeos and cowboys,” she said. “I just grew up around all that stuff and it struck me that it was what I wanted to represent.”
She captured both night and a daybreak over the mountain scene on the opposite flank with birds flying across a moody, rising sun.
Sullivan had never painted an animal – let alone a pronghorn – which made for intricate, tedious work to get the paint into all the grooves and hair indentations, requiring contortions on her part to hit all the various parts. She has videos of herself on the floor upside down under his neck, she said with a laugh, adding she had muscle cramps from holding that position.
Her husband is an avid hunter, so he helped her with the more realistic coloring on the horns and head, Sullivan said.
Possibly the hardest part, she said, was applying the clear coat to protect the paint against the elements. She had to do it twice after her husband put it on too soon and it ended up bubbling.
This required them to pop about 100 bubbles by hand before blowing it off with an air compressor, touching up some of the paint spots, and applying the coat all over again.
She was pleased with the result and, admittedly, had a hard time parting with her masterpiece, though is happy to hear it’s going to remain in the community publicly displayed like several of the others whose owners donated them back for the public to enjoy.
She thinks hers will go downtown, she said, which she’ll definitely be visiting.
‘Redemption Story’
When Heather Rodriguez thinks of Gillette and Wyoming, she envisions a place defined by grit, spirit and resilience. That and wide-open blue skies.
Rodriguez, a Gillette-based artist and educator at the Rockpile Museum and one of the 10 artists chosen, wanted her pronghorn to look nothing like its likeness in the wild.
Her sculpture, “Where Stardust Blooms,” is a mosaic of dreamy Wyoming skies that’s rooted in a flowery meadow reminiscent of her childhood surrounded by echinacea flowers, molded in hot glue.
On top of the pronghorn's square head is a constellation of stars seen only in blacklight.
This is her version of Wyoming as well as a nod to her personal story and a childhood growing up with a mother steeped in horticulture. It’s also a celebration of the everyday beauty unique to the region and state.
“Sometimes we forget how lucky we are to live in Wyoming,” she said. “I am stunned all the time by the beautiful skyscapes rooted in green.”
Rodriguez is no stranger to painting animal forms, and along with the pronghorn has also painted a life-size anatomically correct horse that for years sat outside the Ava Community Art Center in Gillette. She has also been commissioned to do lifelike replicas of pets.
For her, the pronghorn’s origin story and getting smashed to bits in the first delivery also added to the appeal of the project.
“It’s a redemption story,” she said. “So much of what we talk about here at the museum revolves around grit and determination, and I was raised like that, so for me, there’s beauty because we persevered.”
And the fact the community turned out to support the museum is also part of that story, she said, because so many came together to show up and participate.
Stoneking was likewise pleased by the support as well as the artists' individuality and the wide variety of art styles that encapsulate their unique interpretations and vision of the West and their personal stories.
“It was wonderful for us,” she said, “and Gillette really showed up to support us.”
As for how the money will be used, Stoneking said some of the proceeds will go toward future programming, including helping to pay for a Thomas the Train traveling exhibit for display next year.
“It’s very interactive and will take up a large part of the museum,” she said.
Other upgrades and projects will be determined by the board, she said.
Jen Kocher can be reached at jen@cowboystatedaily.com.
