Buffalo Bill Art Show & Sale: Artist Spotlights
Caliber. The Buffalo Bill Art Show & Sale has it. Our reputation is what it is only because of the artists who grace our presence and why we roll out the red carpet for them.
The 2021 Buffalo Bill Art Show & Sale features 110 artists of exceptional caliber, hailing from Wyoming to New York to Australia, and we couldn’t be more thrilled with the works that are already arriving in Cody from around the world. Your catalog will, as usual, be a record of incredible western art. You can read about each and every one of our remarkable artists here, and we’ve selected a few to feature below with their reflections on their works, this show, and Cody.
Michele Usibelli, Joshua Tobey, and Heide Presse bring very different approaches to their art, and highly different art to the Buffalo Bill Art Show & Sale. What they don’t differ on is their appreciation of the community, location, and caliber of this annual event.
Heide Presse
In her residence in Florida, Presse has recreated much of the American West of yesteryear to surround her while she works. Her studio holds accurate reproductions of clothing and historical artifacts to inform her watercolor and oil paintings of moments and people of the 19th century. Her frequent visits to Wyoming, too, provide her with extensive reference.
Cody is “not the easiest place to get to from Florida. That shows how much we love coming,” Presse noted. Keeping a sharp eye out for interesting landscapes, historic structures, and personal perspective, Presse returns to Wyoming frequently, and not only for the Buffalo Bill Art Show & Sale.
In 2023, Presse will open a museum exhibition based on Oregon Trail journals. For several years, she has been making the voyage to Wyoming to follow the Oregon Trail to gather personal insight and reference. She has clambering up Independence Rock with a historian-reenactor and realizing the only real choice for the young men she planned to paint was to discard their boots and climb to the top to take in the view barefoot.
“That’s the kind of thing that you can’t figure out really until you’ve experienced it somewhat yourself,” said Presse.
She took the same approach to the Buffalo Bill Art Show & Sale. Having spent a lot of time in Wyoming for reference, she had never been to Cody until about five years ago, when she was invited to participate in the show. Not knowing what to expect, she decided to experience it for herself and found a friendly place with a world-class museum.
“We have so enjoyed and continue to enjoy meeting people in Cody,” she said. “We always feel so welcomed and loved when we get there.”
In fact, her time in Cody resulted in the large piece she will bring to the 2021 show. “Tall Tales'' came about because a collector in a previous year’s Buffalo Bill Art Show & Sale commissioned a painting of the explorer William Sublette. She worked with some reenactors for the piece and later returned to Wyoming and Montana to conduct a photo shoot with them. The result is a 40x30 oil painting of two trappers catching up on horseback mid-stream in the 1830s.
“Their faces wear the wrinkles of wisdom that come from being ‘Hiveranos,’ men who have wintered many a season gathering the plews of beaver. I had a great couple of days with these fellows on a beautiful remote ranch in Montana, and really enjoyed spending time with people who have such a passion for living history, do a meticulous interpretation, and are so generous in sharing their knowledge of the era," Presse said of the piece. This inspiration was a bit of a deviation, as Presse prioritizes keeping women and children in the visual storylines she puts together about the American West. Nevertheless, she has found painting mountain men to be a fun adventure.
The adventure and connections continue to perpetuate for Presse. This year, she will extend her time in the Rocky Mountain West both before and after the show to further research her Oregon Trail journal exhibition. Perhaps in future years, you’ll see a piece in the Buffalo Bill Art Show & Sale inspired by her 2021 travels to and through Wyoming.
Joshua Tobey
A focus on continual improvement makes sculptor Josh Tobey and the Buffalo Bill Art Show & Sale a great match.
In the years Tobey has attended the show, he believes it’s gotten better each year because the organizers evaluate and grow. In that time, he’s also pushed himself to new levels, based on the belief that an artist should bring their best work to a show of this caliber. So, as the Rendezvous Royale improves on last year’s pandemic adjustments, Tobey will present his biggest piece, and probably his best yet, to Cody.
“For me, this sculpture will show development in all aspects of what I consider to be good sculpture. Patina is very important to me. I feel like it’s the finish, and you should always finish strong. Sculpture is about shape, and I think it’s a wonderful shape. Finally, personality, dialogue, and storytelling are really important, and this piece certainly provides the viewer with a story,” Tobey said of his 55.5-inch-tall “Stepping Stone” bronze.
The piece depicts a heron and a turtle and holds a dialogue and “subtle punchline” that holds a bit of the sculptor in it for the viewer to discover. His miniature piece also holds humor true to Tobey’s character: a wall hanging of a squirrel hanging from a branch completely tension free titled, “The Hangover.” As patrons of the Buffalo Bill Art Show & Sale discover the offense the turtle has taken to being a stepping stone for an oblivious heron or the clever naming of his miniature, Tobey will be making his own discoveries. He arrives at a show, discussing his work, “it’s no longer tactile for you,” he explained. Shows and the conversations with collectors and fellow artists give him perspective on what he’s creating and how he’s developing as a sculptor.
The community fostered by the Buffalo Bill Art Show & Sale is one of the things that makes this event Tobey looks forward to each year. After working solo in their respective studios around the world, the painters, sculptors, illustrators emerge to enjoy the connection with fellow artists as well as appreciators of art. This atmosphere, paired with return visits and a shared commitment by all to continue to elevate the show, creates an atmosphere that celebrates excellence, with a theme of small-town fun and warmth. This is clearly illustrated in Tobey’s presence at the Quick Draw. As a sculptor whose work demands more than 90 minutes, he doesn’t participate in the Quick Draw. But he’s there to appreciate it, and to tease his friends as they work under the ticking clock.
“You’d be surprised when a person has cultivated a skill and dedicated themselves to discipline, they can actually create an awesome piece of work in a limited amount of time,” he said. “You do need a heckler a bit—it should be a sculptor, I think.”
“Community” reaches well beyond the events of Rendezvous Royale.
“The town of Cody is a lot more than a dusty town trying to make a name out of its history,” Tobey said, going on to rave about the fun main street, the exciting restaurant scene, great lodging, plethora of activities, wildlife viewing in and beyond neighboring Yellowstone National Park, and, of course, the cowboy ethos that runs deep in Cody.
Michele Usibelli
One of the first times Usibelli attended the Buffalo Bill Art Show & Sale, she walked into the auction preview and complimented a volunteer’s cowboy boots. The volunteer promptly took the boots off and insisted Usibelli try them on. Though what initially drew the painter to this show was the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, what keeps her coming back are the people.
“The Buffalo Bill Center of the West is such an amazing facility, and I think it’s a real diamond for Cody to be able to have that particular institution there in town,” said Usibelli, who has always been intrigued by Western art. “But we really just kept coming back because of the people. You’re kind of family.”
Usibelli started her path to fine art as a student of architecture, then transitioned to paint, studying Russian impressionists such as Nicolai Fechin, eventually developing a style uniquely her own in oils and other materials. Like many artists, Usibelli finds inspiration in many places, but she returns to a few frequently. Her miniature piece for the 2021 show is an 8x10 of a young Native American girl with a homemade doll. “Tenderness” is an homage to Fechin. Her main piece is inspired by a personal experience, and it’s also a spark that she finds herself regularly coming back to, her family’s first river rafting trip, about 10 years ago.
“It was a wonderful mental, physical, aesthetic break,” she said, that sparked her love of rivers and continues to inspire vacation planning and work alike. Her main piece in the 2020 show was a fly fisherwoman, and this year she will bring an 18x36 horizontal painting of two boats making their way down the Middle Fork of the Salmon River.
“My goal with this particular piece was temperature shift,” Usibelli explained. “So I really focused on the cool temperatures on the shadowed side and then the warm temperatures where the light’s hitting and the movement that that creates.” As she describes it, you can almost feel the cold shadows move over your skin as you drift downriver, followed by the heat of the sun embracing you as you float through.
In fact, that is the very language Usibelli uses to describe Cody: an “embracing, warm feeling” from moments like watching town staff hang American flags on each street corner or getting tips from local artists for her explorations in the Cody-Yellowstone area.
“One of the reasons it’s so exceptional is not only is everybody a great artist, but they’re all really great people. That comes across and I think the patrons and collectors appreciate that, too,” she reflected.
The ties between the creators and the viewers are perhaps strongest during the Quick Draw, which is Usibelli’s favorite part of the Rendezvous Royale festivities. As painters work, they find themselves not alone in a studio somewhere far away but gathered in one location—alongside their intended audience, chatting and sharing as they create.
“It is intimidating to paint while people are watching, but if you like that interaction, it's wonderful and it's really fun to share the process with those people that are interested in seeing it,” she said. And that experience is what Usibelli is most looking forward to in 2021: coming together again with her Buffalo Bill family.