 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
|
|||||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|||||
 |
|
||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Barbara Van Cleve
"At A Hard Run" |
"A Glorious Commotion" |
"A Good Day Under the Crazies" |
"A Good Piece of 'Twine'" |
|||
"A Kind Eye" |
"A Little Dusty" |
"A Wink" |
"After the Calving" |
|||
"Appreciation" |
"Brewing Storm" |
"Bringing up the Drag" |
"Chinks, Oxbow & Jinglebobs" |
|||
"Chuck Wagon" |
"Dandy Takes Time" |
"Easy Winter" |
"Feeding the Old Way" |
|||
"First Saddling" |
"Ghost Horses" |
"Graceful Control" |
"Ground Blizzard" |
|||
Barbara Van Cleve's heritage is rich with family history and firsthand experience. Her family's ranch, the Lazy K Bar, was founded in 1880 on the east slopes of the Crazy Mountains near Melville, Montana. Her father, Spike Van Cleve, was a unique combination of writer, poet, Harvard scholar and expert horseman-and ''a pure quill Montanan'' as her father once put it.
Barbara was raised with one brother and two sisters on the ranch where her family still continues to raise ''black baldy'' Angus cattle and fine registered Quarter Horses.
As a photographer, she has held a camera since she was 11 years old when her parents give her a ''Brownie'' camera and a home developing kit. Her youthful interest in photography soon grew into a lifelong commitment. Ranch work also began early for Barbara. Barely six, she could be found helping at the corrals or sitting astride a horse. Ever since she has been documenting the ''true grit'' and romantic beauty of her experiences on the ranch and on other ranches in the West.
Along the way, she earned an MA in English Literature at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois; she has been a Dean of Women at DePaul University in Chicago, Illinois; and she taught English Literature, and later photography, for over 25 winters at DePaul University, Loyola University and Mundelein College, all in the Chicago area. At the same time photography continued to be a passionate avocation. In her free time, she worked for Rand McNally as a textbook photographer and also established her own stock photography agency. The long summers were usually spent on the family ranch in Montana.
She moved to Santa Fe in late 1980 to concentrate on photography full time and had her first major exhibition in the fall of 1985. Since that time she has had over 30 one person shows and has been in nearly 60 group shows. Her work is in public and private in the United States as well as internationally. Her photography has been published in Roughstock Sonnets,(with poetry by Paul Zarzyski), Way Out West, and Cowboys: A Horseback Heritage, KOAT-TV, an ABC affiliate in Albuquerque, New Mexico produced and aired a thirty-minute video documentary: Barbara Van Cleve: ''Capturing Grace'' in 1993. In the fall of 1995 her book Hard Twist: Western Ranch Women was published by Museum of New Mexico Press, and she was inducted into the Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame in Fort Worth, Texas. All This Way for the Short Ride (with poet Paul Zarzyski) was published by the Museum of New Mexico Press in 1997. Her newest project is a book: Holding the Reins written by Marc Talbert and illustrated with her photographs about ranch girls. It is to be published by Harper Collins in December 2002.
Now she divides her time between Montana, Santa Fe and numerous other locations in between when she is working on new projects or a new book. Her horses and ranch are in Montana adjacent to the family ranch. Her darkroom, studio and photography business are located in Santa Fe.
About UsAbout Mia Valley |
Contact Us213 South Mill Street |
Get in TouchSubscribe to our Newsletter |
