Veryl Goodnight – NWR Artist

Veryl Goodnight and her husband, Roger Brooks, live in the mountains of Southwest Colorado, between Durango and Mesa Verde National Park. Her career started as a wildlife painter in the early 1970’s.  She began sculpting to educate herself about anatomy. Sculpture then dominated her career throughout the late 1900’s while she and Roger lived in Santa Fe, New Mexico.  Their 2006 move back to Colorado intensified her desire to return to oil painting. Veryl’s talent has been recognized with many articles in every art magazine as well as a 40-year Retrospective at the Gilcrease Museum in 2011 and a 45-year Retrospective at The National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame in Fort Worth, Texas in 2016. She was inducted into the National Cowirl Hall of Fame October 2017. Throughout her long career, Veryl has become fully immersed in each subject and is always searching for untold stories. Today’s journey is on the runners of a sled behind her own team of four dogs. The primal experience of racing along a winter trail took Veryl’s research back more than 15,000 years to the co-evolution of man and dog. It has taken several years of research to understand the many uses of sled dogs, and  to accumulate props such as sleds, historical harnesses, and clothing.Veryl has found a rich history that has seldom been represented in the world of western art. The sled dog is to the North what the horse has been to the Plains.