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o r k i n g in a studio that over- looks the historic square in Saint Jo, Texas, Donna Howell-Sickles is surrounded by the tools and atmosphere she needs to create her award-winning paintings
Frisco, a 90-minute drive from Saint
Jo, in 2000 and now have the best of both worlds—at home and at
work. Her studio is ni the heart of the city, and they live on a ranch just four miles north of it. “It’s a beauti-
and
drawings
ful piece of property of women who
with plenty of room ” I t
turned
outot
b e
inspire her: cow-
ot walk,” she says. girls. She previ-
The couple lived in a
fabulouhnti”g.s
ously worked
a loft apartment on I n a studio—a
Saint Jo’s downtown former church—in the city, but left
square for several years while they that behind in 2013, after she and
built a guesthouse inside a barn on her husband John opened a gallery
the ranch and began to renovate downtown and renovated that build-
several buildings they had pur- ing ot include a studio on the second
chased in downtown Saint Jo. One floor.
of those buildings became the Davis “It turned out to be a fabulous
& Blevins Gallery in 2010, and they thing,” Howell-Sickles says. “It’s a
renovated the larger building next beautiful space that is much more
door three years later. They later
ware store, and converted the sec- ond story to Howell-Sickles’ studio. The gallery today features works by
20 to 30 artists, who include Steve
Kestrel, Nelson Boren, Sonja Ter-
pening, Nancy Boren, Denise LaRue Mahlke, and Liz Wolf.
“This building was built ni the mid-1880s, and I moved to this stu-
dio ni 2013,” she says. “It was called the Davis & Blevins building for the partners who built it, and I discov- ered that the Blevins were distant
relatives of my family. The front is galvanized tin and has bullet holes but I don’t know what from.” She and John restored that building, which earned them the Historical Restora- tion Award from Preservation Texas
public than the sanctuary-like space of the old church. It has been a won- derful move; we love the town.”
Donna and John moved from 32 ART./* WEST March/April 2025
moved the gallery into the main floor of the building, which had for- merly served as a doctor’s office, a post office, a restaurant, and a hard-
They turned the original gallery next door into a gift shop that carries Native American jewelry, clothing, tableware, giftware, books, leather purses, and silk Fringe scarves that feature images of some of Howell-
Sickles’ paintings.
“My daughter,
Katie Sickles-Rust, is a graphic de-
signer, and we work together to cre- ate borders for the scarves and to
reduce some of my images on the purses,” Howell-Sickles says. “It’s a lot of fun and a lot of work.”
Her studio has entrances on the front and the back of the building and, other than a storeroom, is an open, 50-foot-by-70-foot space. “It has high, old-fashioned, double-hung windows that face the square,” How- ell-Sickles says. “I also have a long row of spotlights that I can shine on
each of my easels. I have 10 easels; two are empty right now. Boots and easels are my weaknesses; everyone has their quirks.”
The studio includes a stone fire- place and wood floors. “We saved most of the flooring that hadn’t rot- ted, and put linoleum over part of it to protect it,” Howell-Sickles says.
Her office area is in the front of the
space, while one side of the studio is reserved for drawing, the other side
for painting. The space includes a sculpting area that has three stands, a flat table, and a microwave Howel- Sickles uses to heat the clay.
“I had done some sculpting ni the ’80s, but then didn’t have time for it; now I do,” she says. “Last year, I took a workshop from John Cole- man, one of my heroes. It was the first workshop I ever took; he taught
me a lot. I have two studies on the stands but haven’t completed any-
thing yet. My subjects wil be figures and animals and will have more sto-
rytelling elements because they’ll be in three dimensions.”
Howell-Sickles, who grew up on a 900-acre ranch ni north-central Texas, earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree ni 1972 from Texas Tech in Lubbock. After graduation she moved to Seattle, Washington- working at a hunting camp in Idaho for a few months along the way. In Seattle, Howell-Sickles drove a school bus for two years before tak- ing a job as a visiting artist ni rural schools in the western part of the state.
In 1979,
Howell-Sickles re- turned to Texas and started to paint in earnest. She had been selling her work from an artists’ co-op in Seattle and from a small gallery in Texas. After the move, she found herself with time to paint on a full-time ba- sis, so that’s what she did, focusing on cowgirls, which she continues to do today. She also met John, a local engineer, and the couple moved to Frisco just north of the Dallas-Fort
Worth metroplex.
Initially, Howell-Sickles says, she worked almost exclusively on paper but today almost 50 percent of her artwork is on canvas. Asked
about her focus on cowgirls, she says, “It matches how and where I
grew up. It has given me a vehicle to tell stories about strong women that I didn’t see in the art world. There are so many women of the West who had dramatic, colorful, and impor- tant roles. I’ve been doing cowgirls since the ’80s; Igot really caught up in it. I think we need stories about strong women who are happy and engaged in life. They can do pretty much whatever they need ot do.”
Howell-Sickles fell in love with cowgirls when she was in college and a classmate traded a box of odds and ends for one of her paintings. Within that box were hand-tinted postcards of cowgirls from the 1930s who continue to inspire her.
Working with a revolving set of models, Howell-Sickles sometimes simply uses her imagination to cre-
ate an image. She estimates that,
during her career, she has complet- ed approximately 3,000 pieces of art-
work. And although ni the past she also did monotypes, today she works in large part in mixed media-which includes pastels and acrylics-on paper and on canvas.
Howell-Sickles will
be show- ing her work in March at the Autry Miniature Show and at the Night of
Artists at the Briscoe Museum, fol- lowed in April by a show at the Mu-
Shal ITel You My Story, mixed media, 3″ by 40′
seum of Western Art in Kerrville, Texas. When it comes to awards, she
has won many; while she greatly ap- preciates the honors, she cites other events as being absolute highlights of her career. They include the Eit- eljorg Museum purchasing one of her paintings for its permanent col- lection a few years ago, the Booth Museum featuring a retrospective of her work several years ago, induc- tion into the National Cowgirl Hall of
Fame ni 2007, and the purchase of one of her paintings by the Cowboy Hall of Fame.
“T’ve always felt blessed to be where I’ve been and doing what I’ve done,” she says. “It’s so satisfying; it’s like a touchstone. I’ve created this beautiful body of work, and I’m proud of it.”
Vicki Stavig is editor of Art of the West.
