Betty Jo Gigot, Editor and Publisher

You have to really want to go there if you end up in Campo, Colo. Since my husband needed to look at an old feed box, I decided that was my chance to visit with Shalah Perkins, one of my friends and certainly one of the best western sculptors in the business today.

As it turned out, that was the only day that Shalah and her husband Jess would have been at home. They had just returned from three weeks at the Denver Stock Show, and were leaving the next day for the Arizona Fine Arts Expo where Shalah would sculpt and sell from a tent in Rawhide, Ariz., for six weeks.

“I am really excited about the show,” Shalah said. The chance to sculpt eight hours a day, seven days a week, made her grin. She loves her craft.

Perkins and the family served a scrumptious lunch of T-bones and all the fixings while we talked about her journey.

Playing with clay
Perkins remembers, growing up, how she loved to play in the clay in the creek close to the country school she attended. She really preferred the clay to the reading and writing that was going on inside, but raised on a ranch in southeastern Colorado, she knew a person was supposed to work, not play.

A hands-on rancher, Perkins worked side by side with her husband, Jess, building fences and branding and delivering calves for years. Then her life took at strange turn.

At the age of 41, Perkins was diagnosed with cancer. When her doctors were not getting good results here in the U.S., she went to Greece for a series of treatments.

“When I was getting ready to come back, they told me that I needed to do something I really enjoyed, taking the time to let my body heal. I thought to myself, I’ll go play in the clay.”

Perkins “played” for a couple of years as she recovered from her illness and found it amazingly rewarding. Then, when she realized the cost of going to the foundry to bronze her pieces, she decided she would have to sell them to afford her hobby. That hobby has made her nationally known in the art field. She and Jess travel to shows, selling her works, while their daughters and their families operate the ranch. A second bout with cancer five years ago turned out to be contained, and Perkins thanks God every day for her good fortune.

Her daughters, Natalie Bursch and Kelly Alley, not only look after the ranch and livestock, but also help Perkins with advertising and bookkeeping. Alley is learning to sculpt from her mom. Perkins’ advise to beginning sculptors is to study everything you can.

“I study anatomy every single day,” Perkins said. Many of her pieces are modeled after her children and grandchildren.

Perkins works are in public and corporate collections, and one of her pieces, titled “Kindred Spirits,” was purchased by the State of Wyoming and is on display at the governor’s mansion in Cheyenne. Many of her pieces are fountains, and each comes with a poem, which Perkins says, adds another dimension to her work. Several grace our home and office and are a constant delight.

“Everyone has talents, and if you find yours it makes you one happy person,” Perkins said. Perkins has also learned to share her happiness with others, in the shape of her art.

Poems by Shalah Perkins