{"id":4712,"date":"2021-03-30T09:25:45","date_gmt":"2021-03-30T15:25:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/discovernwnebraska.com\/?p=4712"},"modified":"2021-03-30T09:32:47","modified_gmt":"2021-03-30T15:32:47","slug":"generations-later-brownlees-work-shown-alongside-sandozs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/discovernwnebraska.com\/staging\/5924\/generations-later-brownlees-work-shown-alongside-sandozs\/","title":{"rendered":"Generations later, Brownlee\u2019s work shown alongside Sandoz\u2019s"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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By Kerri Rempp<\/strong><\/p>

Discover Northwest Nebraska<\/strong><\/p>

The legacy of Mari Sandoz\u2019s creative talent is alive and well in her ancestors, and for one descendant that talent manifests itself in drawings in the realism style reflected in the author\u2019s work.<\/p>

Before Mari Sandoz\u2019s \u201cOld Jules\u201d was published in 1935, the author fought those who would have standardized her language, keeping the Western idioms she used intact. Her writing style and straightforward portrayal of her father\u2019s life on the frontier shocked readers who had romanticized the West but was the beginning of a successful writing career.<\/p>

\u201cShe believed that universal truths could be learned from careful study of one\u2019s one neighborhood, and she diligently studied and wrote about her own neighborhood, the Great Plains, to our great good fortune,\u201d wrote Helen Winter Stauffer in the Afterword to \u201cOld Jules\u201d in the 1985 and later editions.<\/p>

Sandoz\u2019s realistic approach to her writing is mirrored today, more than eight decades later, in the drawings of her great-great-niece, Rachel Brownlee. From graphite to charcoal, Brownlee uses several mediums to create drawings in the realism style of her ancestor.<\/p>

Old Jules didn\u2019t approve of Sandoz learning to read and write, but she persevered on her own to achieve her career as a published author. Likewise, Brownlee had no formal education to guide her career in art. She and her six siblings were raised and homeschooled on Celia Sandoz Ostrander Barth\u2019s (her grandmother) ranch.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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\u201cThere was no art education of any kind,\u201d she recalled.<\/p>

However, when she was five or six, her sister gifted her a \u201cHow to Draw Horses\u201d book, and it inspired her to explore her budding artistic talent.<\/p>

\u201cBy the time I was nine, I had sold my first piece for $1,\u201d she said. Her works currently on display at the Mari Sandoz High Plains Heritage Center in Chadron cost more than $1, all of them the product of a more recent effort to prioritize her artwork.<\/p>

Brownlee completed some art in high school, but put it aside completely in college while she studied to become a software engineer. When her family returned to Ashby, it gave her the opportunity to dedicate her time and talents to artwork full-time.<\/p>

\u00a0\u201cAlmost everything you see is from the last five years.\u201d<\/p>

Brownlee had her first art show six months ago, and now has seven scheduled in the next year. Her work will be on display at the Sandoz Center on the Chadron State College campus through May 21, and Brownlee has two more artist-in-residence dates scheduled during that run \u2013 April 6 and May 11.<\/p>

While she still operates her software engineering company \u2013 a cattle management program with 60,000 cattle in the database \u2013 she believes her artwork fits well within her wheelhouse.<\/p>

\u201cIn my mind all of my artwork is technical,\u201d she said.<\/p>

Whether it\u2019s a sepia-toned drawing of a horse, a graphite study of spur straps, a Gothic church in ink or a charcoal production, she\u2019s using rulers to sketch it out on graph paper and math to scale it up to the finished size.<\/p>

\u201cIt\u2019s all bits and bytes. It\u2019s black and white,\u201d Brownlee explained.\u00a0<\/p>

With no formal art education, she began by copying the leg motions and body language of horses from the encyclopedia and from her own experiences on the ranch. As she\u2019s explored other subject matters, she\u2019s been determined to push herself to the next level.<\/p>

\u201cMost of my technical skill has come from trying things,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019ll just put all the effort into it I can and see how far it goes. Some of those (pieces) have turned out to be my best pieces.\u201d<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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She\u2019s started to accumulate awards along the way as well, earning a certificate of excellence and Best of Show at the 2021 Box Butte Art Society Art Show for her charcoal pieces \u201cBy The Sweat of Your Brow\u201d and \u201cAn Uncomfortable Amount of Detail.\u201d She\u2019s booked for custom commissioned work for the next one to two months, too.<\/p>

The bulk of Brownlee\u2019s artwork is inspired by, according to her website, \u201cthe harsh realism of agriculture and western life, and she seeks to show highly realistic details of that life.\u201d She\u2019s learned through experimentation that different mediums serve different purposes. Brownlee said graphite is economical and easy to work with because it\u2019s forgiving, while ink requires the artist to be very purposeful.<\/p>

Much of her work, however, is in charcoal. It\u2019s perfect for realism, she said, but is dirty and unforgiving.<\/p>

\u201cI\u2019m washing my hands constantly and vacuuming up the small pieces to control the white space.\u201d<\/p>

She\u2019s dabbled in acrylic as well and wants to explore that medium more, and is considering trying her hand at black and white oil painting as well. Aside from experimentation in mediums, Brownlee also said she wants to take the next step and move from realism to artwork that viewers will be \u201cmore intimately attracted to.\u201d<\/p>

While many of the pieces on display at the Sandoz Center reflect the western lifestyle, visitors might be surprised by one display \u2013 a collection of charcoal works inspired by Star Wars and video game work.<\/p>

\u201cI am not an adherent to straight up western artwork,\u201d Brownlee said. \u201cI enjoy all subject types.\u201d<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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The Star Wars-themed works were done for her husband, Ethan, and she made the leather steampunk costume, featuring a neck corset, hatband, sword belt and pleated skirt, for a trip to Omaha Comicon for her video game artwork. She\u2019s explored anime and supernatural dream art, too, and during her recent artist-in-residence appearance was working on a calligraphy design.<\/p>

It\u2019s one more way she feels connected to her great-great-aunt Mari Sandoz. She wrote about frontier life, but she had other interests and lived in Denver and New York City.<\/p>

\u201cShe\u2019s always been very important. She was a huge part of our family history.\u201d<\/p>

Brownlee said her grandmother Celia greatly respected Sandoz\u2019s accomplishments and wanted family members to be good representatives of her legacy.<\/p>

\u201cI think there is truly a genetic trail of talent because there are several artists in the family,\u201d Brownlee said, adding that showing her work at the Mari Sandoz Center holds special meaning.<\/p>

\u201cIt\u2019s neat to be here next to her work.\u201d<\/p>

Inviting Brownlee to have a showing at the Sandoz Center was an easy decision given her family connection to Mari Sandoz, said Holly Counts. Her work is a great representation of Sandoz, she added.<\/p>

\u201cYou\u2019re seeing a younger generation, but the same type of storyline continues.\u201d<\/p>

For more about Brownlee, visit rachelbrownlee.com.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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By Kerri Rempp Discover Northwest Nebraska The legacy of Mari Sandoz\u2019s creative talent is alive and well in her ancestors, and for one descendant that talent manifests itself in drawings in the realism style reflected in the author\u2019s work. Before Mari Sandoz\u2019s \u201cOld Jules\u201d was published in 1935, the author fought those who would have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4713,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/discovernwnebraska.com\/staging\/5924\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/IMG_2230.jpg?fit=1800%2C748&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgf0HI-1e0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/discovernwnebraska.com\/staging\/5924\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/discovernwnebraska.com\/staging\/5924\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/discovernwnebraska.com\/staging\/5924\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discovernwnebraska.com\/staging\/5924\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discovernwnebraska.com\/staging\/5924\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4712"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/discovernwnebraska.com\/staging\/5924\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4712\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4723,"href":"https:\/\/discovernwnebraska.com\/staging\/5924\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4712\/revisions\/4723"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discovernwnebraska.com\/staging\/5924\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/discovernwnebraska.com\/staging\/5924\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discovernwnebraska.com\/staging\/5924\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discovernwnebraska.com\/staging\/5924\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}