The Cowgirl Gathering Art Show with Dr. Billy Smith

Hello, and welcome to Cowgirl artists of America's podcast, a podcast dedicated to Cowgirl artists. I'm your host, Megan Wimberley today, we're chatting with Dr. Billy Smith. Executive director of the American paint horse association. The APHA is the world's second largest international equine breed association.

, registering more than 1 million horses in 59 nations and territory, since it was founded, APHA creates and maintains programs that increase the value of American paint horses and enrich members experiences with their horses. Not only does the APHA reinvest into its members. It is also taking community building initiatives to a whole new level by providing opportunities to the Western world at large.

Through community events, such as the red Steagall cowboy gathering, the Cowgirl gathering and more these culturally relevant events build community and provide opportunities for the public to experience and gain, understanding for Western culture. At CGA, we are personally grateful to the APHA, which is the official sponsor for the Cowgirl gathering art show.

Billy welcome to the podcast.

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I'm excited to be here.

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But what's perhaps the most important historical point in our history is that. We're and that we're most proud of is that we're founded by a woman, Rebecca Tyler Lockhart, 60 years ago, more than 60 years ago now. And she'll be honored on the Fort Worth Stockyards Trail of Honor here in just a couple of days, in a few days next week.

That's

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But we moved and renovated some space in the old Fort Worth stockyards horse and Mule barns and we think it's one of the most, Beautiful locations anywhere. In fact, we're we, there are a lot of architects who have a lot of interest in show up to, to walk through our buildings to see how we did it.

It's just very beautiful and we retained the whole look and feel of a barn. It feels like a barn. Our doors to our offices have sliding barn doors, things like that. We have a lot of features, so we're very proud.

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And when we were first planning and Steven said potentially we could have it at your office. My first thought having not been there was like, Oh no, that's not gonna be like a great place. And then he sent me the video and this. Is an amazing space. Truly like I think artists are gonna get there and they're gonna be so proud to have their work hanging in the building.

It's, first of all, it's expansive. It's quite large and very airy, bright. There's two stories. There's seating. It is just a incredibly beautiful space. So I'm sure y'all are very proud.

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And so we wanted to showcase that, but we also think that it'll be a great, it'll be a great place to show off the artwork for this show as.

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You do trail rides and shows. How do y'all approach serving your members? And don't tell us about the youth scholarships yet, cause we're gonna talk about that in a.

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So we try to tailor what we do to our various. Member groups. So breeders, judges, trainers. We try to do those kinds of things to make them as competent and a part of this family of paint horse enthusiasts as we can. We sanction about 800 little bit under a thousand shows a year, worldwide event.

And that includes single event, single discipline events Ropings and barrel races, but we also have large scale breed shows that we do in concert with our state state clubs that do shows and put shows on all around. So a lot of what we do is education related. Training related.

Of course we are the breed registry, so we have the database of all of paint horses that have been registered in the last 60 years. And we try to be as responsive as we can be to our membership. That's

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One set is awarded annually, two students. Who apply and meet certain academic requirements. The other set is awarded in escrow to students who participate in our Youth world championship classes in the summer. So we award first, second, and third place scholarships, and then we also do something unique.

We have a. We have a random draw scholarship in each of those classes. So what happens is those kids we escrow those dollars over their showing career, and at the end of that showing career when they turn 18 or when they go on to matriculate to a university or trade school, then we send that money on to.

To those schools, so those dollars really accrue. So we have some youth so far who have put together winnings of 20 to $30,000 in preparation for their education. What we're also most proud of is that most of these students are attending state universities or community colleges or trade schools We're happy to help kids who need it and who love paint horses.

What we wanted to achieve with that is that they didn't have to, they didn't have to decide about whether going to school or continuing to compete with our paint horses. We were gonna help try to make sure that that doesn't happen. So any school, any accredited institution that they want to attend is we can support through our scholarship.

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We've sent them to various different kinds of trade schools as well as four year and two year academic institutions. So we're very proud of that. And as long as it's a an accredited institution we have, get, fulfill their dreams at any way we can through this scholarship program and we give out.

Couple hundred thousand dollars a year in scholarships and it continues to grow.

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Okay. So that's a relatively new thing, but we wanted to reward. Our youth who, who showed every single year in our Youth World show in the summer, and make sure that we can equip them for what they want to do when they get out of high school.

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And. When the artists are participating in this and also when people are coming in and purchasing their art, they are supporting this youth scholarship for the APHA

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Thanks.

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We wanna make sure we're supporting emerging artists. And that's a really great opportunity because artists come into these shows and maybe they're newer. They aren't able, they haven't built up their resume. And that can be important in the art world. And a show like this is such a big deal for getting an artist to get in, get seen, and help to build their career out and help them to take it to the next level.

And that's really

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And you can see that in everything that a PHA does, you can see it with what the Cowgirl Gathering is doing. And so as we're thinking about that, the APHA is taking a fairly unique approach with these community events. Do you think that's something new for a horse association to do?

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So we wanted to celebrate that in a way that's unique and perpetuates, perpetuates our heritage. In our foundation, we support scholarships, but our, the other leg of our foundation is what we call heritage. So it's the western lifestyle, perpetuating that in a way that we have a very powerful message to the rest of the world.

So what there will be a lot of people at the cowgirl gathering who are, who don't live that Western lifestyle, but they have an interest in it. And this will give us a great chance to showcase ourselves.

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And creating these spaces where people can come together. And I think, cga, that's one of our, two of our Core four beliefs are collaboration and community. And I think that is where this beautiful thing happens when we can bring all these people together to become a community and to collaborate with one another in a way that helps the community at large.

I think that's an incredibly beautiful and powerful thing to.

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We know there are people out. Who love horses and have loved horses their whole lives, and maybe they'll never own one. But we wanna reach that group too. We want to tell that story as well to those people. I think it's important that we reach out to a larger spec horse enthusiast, and this helps us do it in a location that will draw large.

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What it was successful. Our wildest imaginations, but we always had at the master plan to add an art an art show, add a fashion show, and maybe a few other things down the road. So we've always been very interested in expanding it, even from day one. But our first launch, we were trying to feel our way around to see how we can do this in a way that honors our past and.

The cowgirls really all around the

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It's so kind of Ted Talk for cowgirls. And we have it at the Cowboy Channel studio. It seats about 300. But in that first, the restrictions we had in. Obviously still included at that time masks, but we had, we could only sell, I think about a hundred, 125 seats. So we were under restrictions, but but we still had it, and it still went really well.

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It started that Sunday morning and it didn't finish until Monday morning. It was so wildly successful for us that we were blown away by it, taking a little bit aback, but it was fantastic from the.

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And so our foundation really wanted to take that on and really try to develop it. So it's an important, it's an incredibly important part of the development of the cowgirl gather.

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But also most of our leadership is women. So our board of directors is predominantly female. Most of our state directors are women. So we wanted to honor that and really reach out to that group. And what, and one of the things we did is we created a magazine called Chrome. Magazines a members magazine.

It's a lifestyle magazine and we wanted to feature women in their lifestyle. So not just what they do as with their horses, but other things as well. What we began to notice was there are some incredibly accomplished women in a variety of fields that we hadn't really realized. We had seen them at events.

We knew who they were, but we didn't know in every situation. Accomplish they were. So as we learned, we thought we need to get these people into a room to tell their story so that other women could be inspired by that. And that was the early seed of growing this out is and what we found was there were even more accomplished people than.

Than we had even imagined at that time. And so we just think it's a pool that's never going to run dry. A very accomplished people that we wanna honor during, especially the Essence Exchange event that we do every year at the cowgirl gathering as well.

We thought there were some people operating in our membership that were a little bit in the shadows, and we wanted to bring their accomplishments out. For example the mc of the Essence Exchange is Amanda Kimes, who she and her husband have developed, Kimes Ranch.

Very accomplished, very smart, very savvy. Everyone knows Kames Ranch, but not everyone. We wanted to introduce the world to Amanda Kimes, and many people know Barbara Schulte, who will be at the cowgirl the Essence Exchange and Nadine Lipson with Paws Up. But we were thinking about someone like a Tina Shanahan rear Admiral Tina Shanahan

who her responsibilities during our most recent wars were basically to save the lives of these service members who were injured in battle. It was her people who did all of that, and she's going to do a very inspiring horses and heroes presentation as well. But, we're gonna have people.

Lori Rodin who is involved in barrel racing and hunter under saddle horses and halter horses, but she's also has been an important leader in one of the largest construction and engineering firms in the world. And we have partners that include A Q H A. So Patty Tyberg will. At that event, Annie Anna Morrison, who is the CEO of the National Reigning Cow Horse Association, Jill Dunkle with Stock Horse of Texas.

We're gonna have some great people there and we wanted to honor them because they weren't always, We want to get 'em in the forefront in a much more meaningful way. Tammy Schwans for example, is a great story and we're gonna, we're gonna hear some great stories and that's what we wanted to try to do is tell those stories in a meaningful way.

That's

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Let's get them in front of some people who are already doing that. Some women who are already accomplished. And that's what we want to try to do is to to illuminate this western lifestyle to a new generation.

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But yeah, you'll see all ages there for.

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First is the competitors. So we've got the Charlie one horse All Girl team roping. It's got $10,000 in added money. , we have the Valley Vet breakaway roping on November 12th. It's got 21,000 in added money, and then we have the Platinum Performance 24 hour barrel event as well. So it's for the competitor.

And by the way, that barrel event is a, it's a fived event. So the competitor, but also the essence Exchange part is for that person who wants to learn more. The cowgirl community and jobs and careers that they can excel at and continue their Western lifestyle. And there's some great inspiring stories that you're going to hear.

So it's people who ride and compete, but also people who they don't ride and maybe they don't compete, but they love the Western lifestyle and they want to get closer. To the people who make that possible.

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They'll be th they'll be broadcast and then they'll do it replay it several. After. So this opportunity, if you're a subscriber to the Cowboy Channel and they've been a great supporter to us along the way, and it'll be in their studio. Everybody will have a chance to see it. If you want more details we have a really rich website.

It's just cowgirl gathering.com. It's real simple,

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Okay. Cowgirl gathering.com. And then let's end talking about this art show a little bit more. We have our opening night on November 10th, and so the performance events actually start on the 11th. So we're kicking off the event on the 10th. We have our opening reception.

We're gonna have artists there so people can come down that evening visit with the artists. We're looking into getting a musician. So that might be something that's going on. You can come hang out, chat with the artist, chat with each other. See this beautiful space for one, if you haven't checked it out, you really gotta get down there and see it.

And then also view all of this beautiful work. We had our juror was Sarah Adcocks from the CM Russell Museum, and so she's finishing up her stuff right now. And I know Billy, you're so excited to see. See the work too. So hopefully we'll have all of that sorted out. But we had so many just beautiful submissions and a lot of artists saying that they're gonna be able to come to the event.

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And it is much different looking at that piece of art in person than on a screen. There's a power in art that you don't get through your computer or phone screen and standing in front of it and you can see that artist's brush stroke and you can see those fine little details and it can be a really powerful experience just standing in front of that piece of art that's calling

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And then, but then add to that possibly being able to talk with the artist. At the, and ask the I like to ask those questions. So how long does this piece take for you to do? What's unique about it? What did it start out to be this piece, or did it end up being this piece when you started to do something else?

There's always a story behind almost every piece, and it's not always obvious when you look at the work, but it's great when you can talk to the artists and we're looking. To having them on, having them in our space and having showcasing their work. Yeah,

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We're also going to have demonstrations throughout the weekend so that people can come and they can see artists doing their work at that time, and they can talk about, Why are you doing that? How do you do this? And you can actually see that process happening. So that's gonna be a really cool thing that is going on throughout the weekend as well.

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We think it's going to be a long term great partnership. And appreciate your involvement with us as well.

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And then just, promoting these female artists in this space and helping emerging artists. So many aspects of it just, it was like, Oh, those pieces fit together, .

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And I hope they walk away understanding how we've attempted to preserve the past, preserve history. And create a way to showcase people who love the same history that we do.

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And it just looked so much different whenever I saw, like I said, whenever I saw Y was building and everything, I was just like, Maybe I'm thinking of the wrong space, but I don't think that's what that used to look like. ?

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It's just a real eyeopener and it's amazing how many people are so pleased with the fact that these horse and mule barns have been completely renovated and, but yet still maintain. Fixtures of the past. And so I just think it's a beautiful space. And you mentioned red Stegall. It's amazing to work in a place where you can just bump into red Stegall from time to time.

He's a real gem and a supporter of all things western lifestyle and it's just amazing to just run into him from time to time. We consider him a friend. That's

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Whether you're just interested, curious, or you're like out there roping cattle. Doctoring cattle, like wherever you fall on the spectrum, we would love for you to join us. Come and see this beautiful space, support artists, support youth, aph a kids. The art show is free to attend. You can come the 10th through the 13th and you can come out and view that and the, and then check out those tickets for the cowgirl gathering because there are gonna be some really.

inspiring people and join the community and leave, with something, whether it's like feeling more courage or you take home that piece of art. You left the event with something else.

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Awesome.

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I hope you enjoy. Today's episode of cowgirl, artists of the America's podcast with Dr. Billy Smith of the American paint horse association.

Make sure to check out the Cowgirl gathering. At Cowgirl gathering.com there you can see the schedule and purchase your tickets and also don't forget to come by the art show our opening night is november 10th, and we'd love to see you if you can't make it on opening we'll still have artists demonstrations throughout the weekend and the work will be out through the 13th. we hope to see you there