‘Art of a Cowgirl’: Judy Parton and Sara Minze paint the hide and heritage of Texas

BY BROOKLYN MCKINNEY

Feature Editor

The Cross Timbers Fine Arts Council presented its “Art of the Cowgirl” exhibit from Sept. 8 through the 26, featuring western art right from the hands of local artists Judy Parton and Sara Minze during Stephenville’s rodeo week.

Parton was an art teacher from Hico, Texas, who is now a full-time artist enjoying as much time with her grandchildren as she can. Her bright and loud personality shines through in her acrylic paintings. She doesn’t just paint memories; she sees them in a way that makes you smile at the canvas long after the last stroke of her brush.

“Judy is one of those people, you can kind of see it in her art; she’s very colorful,” Jon Newton, co-director of the Cross Timbers Fine Arts Council, said. “She lights the room up whenever she walks into the room. She’s always smiling, she’s always laughing and her art reflects that.”

Parton’s former art student, Sara Minze, would later discover her love for leatherwork, using her artistic dedication to make intricate pieces that are just as practical for everyday life as they are beautiful.

“I like things that have a function and a purpose,” Minze said. “I’m one of those weird people that uses both sides of their brain. A lot of people are right-brained or left-brained.”

In fact, she made Parton some brown leather chaps with sunflowers and a bright pink apron she calls a “chap-ron.” Minze put “Judy” on one side and a donkey on the other, because Parton loves donkeys.

Minze’s business, Stacked M Custom Leather, accepts inquiries on just about anything she can make out of a leather hide. She indeed takes great pride in her work. A custom purse ordered for a girl named Paige was even featured in the “Art of the Cowgirl” exhibit.

“She made this timeline of how, when you start to make a piece of leather, there’s all of these steps to get to the finished product,” Newton said. “And when you see chaps or a purse or something like that, she may have 30, 40 hours worth of work into that, to get that sewn. So, it’s intense.”

While Parton mostly sells pre-created paintings, she immediately got to work as soon as she heard about a little boy who shared her love for donkeys and wanted a navy blue tie she painted that had already been sold in the exhibit.

“There was no sold sticker on it,” Newton said. “So I come down here, check this lady out and I get to the page… that tie is already sold. But we didn’t get a sticker on it. I told the lady, I said, ‘I’m so sorry, that tie just sold. I didn’t get a sold sticker on it, but give me one second.’

“The lady wanted to buy it for a family that she’s close to. They just lost a little boy. ... He just loved jackrabbits, so she wanted to buy that tie to give to the dad. So I called Judy and I said, ‘Hey, here’s the deal. I know artists don’t like to paint the same thing twice,’ so I told her the story, and she’s like, ‘I’m painting right now. I’m painting another jackrabbit for that lady.’”

According to Parton’s artistic statement, her goal is to “make people excited” when they view her art by playing with “bold colors, designs and techniques that stir the emotions.” 

Not only has she succeeded in that, but she has also raised up a generation of young artists like Minze who are just as passionate.

“The Art of a Cowgirl” was more than just generic decorations people hang up on a wall and stare at when they’re feeling contemplative.

It was a purse pocket repurposed out of a Justin boot.

It was “The Legend” J.B. Mauney painted in a yellow halo that emanated from the butt of his cigarette, glowing around his bright blue eyes.

It was a “Cosmic Cowboy” riding over red rocks and marble planets, with the sun and the moon painted inside of his shoe.

It was a rider and a leather horse carved into the eye inside a swirling silhouette of a man in a wide-brimmed hat.

It was the hide and heritage of Texas.