Marjo Wilson Jensen:
A Tribute to Ranchland Art & Music
By Marjo Wilson Jensen & Marian Prentice Huntington
More than a half-century ago, I began life on Buck Mountain, an hour’s drive on a dirt road 28 miles north of Covelo (pop.1,300). Our home was nestled in Round Valley amidst wild rangelands and the Yolla Bolly National Wilderness of inland Mendocino County.
Raised in Round Valley, my childhood was spent on a cattle ranch with my mother, father, two brothers, and sister. When not working outside, I was riding horses or walking the dogs in the fields or busy drawing and writing little stories and poems, all bound with yarn. My mother saved them all—however they all burned in a house fire many years later.
Here I am in Covelo today, fortunate to be a fine-arts painter and musician, living near the Middle Fork of the Eel River, a huge life-giving resource that is as much part of our country souls as the land and mountain ranges surrounding us in the sheltered beauty of Round Valley.
Round Valley is also the longtime home of the Native American “Round Valley Indian Tribes Reservation” originally comprising different tribes from near and far—as many as 11 tribes or possibly more—that were forced to live together by the U.S. Government beginning in 1856. Today, seven tribes are officially recognized on the reservation: Yuki, Wailacki, Nomlacki, Littlelake, Pit River, Concow, and Pomo.
As an artist and woman who has grown up among local Native Americans, I’ve always felt respect and reverence towards the pristine natural land and Native Peoples who have lived here for thousands of years prior to the arrival of colonists, explorers, and conquers from other countries. The history of how non-natives arrived and how they wielded wreckage upon the land and local Native Peoples is a dark, disturbing truth that remains etched in the minds of multi-generational families living here today. The history of conquest across all the Americas is tragic and real—an echoing darkness to this day.
How can modern day people heal these wounds? All my life I’ve yearned for a world instilled with respect and harmony, honoring Natural Truth. Can people ever truly heal from multi-generational war?
I don’t know how to heal the past other than to try and heal it in the present moment in every way possible. Those of us living here today are continuing to experience a rapidly disappearing lifestyle—a lifestyle close to Nature, as we live and work in connection with wildlife and livestock.
Round Valley has experienced the worst and the best of humanity interacting with the forces of Nature. I’m attuned enough to Nature to know that rivers must sometimes carve through rock to find their way to the sea. So as an artist, I carve away every day with faith that a calm gentle flow is up ahead, just around the bend. I have a faith in Nature, which is designed to automatically find a way to make things balanced and harmonious. Yes, it may take a long time, but Nature always seeks and eventually creates that harmonious flow. The Eel River is a great teacher and inspiration to me as I paint.
I’ve been painting this place and its people with all my heart for nearly 35 years, since graduating from the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. Following graduation, I had art shows spanning the state in Ojai, Pasadena, Paso Robles, San Luis Obispo, the San Francisco Bay Area, and in towns to the north.
In 1999 my artwork earned “Best of Show,” “Best of Division,” and “People’s Choice” at the Horse Expo in Sacramento. That same year, at the Grand National Celebration of Western Art at the Cow Palace in the San Francisco Bay Area, I was awarded First and Third Place in Painting and Drawing. These were high honors bestowed to me by the Senior Curator of the Oakland Museum, Harvey L. Jones MFA, who said he was impressed by the strength of my paintings working figuratively as well as in the abstract. I’ve been awarded “First Place in Painting” twice (2019, 2022) at the Highland Gallery’s esteemed Annual Juried Art Show in Weaverville.
Meanwhile in Covelo, an ongoing, rotating display of my art was featured at the North Fork Café—our only restaurant and beloved gathering spot, until it and my adjoining art studio were tragically burned down. I lost some very large paintings in that fire.
Thankfully, misfortune mixes with good fortune. Firefighters miraculously saved one large painting from the flames, “Covelo Cows,” with two Black Angus cows standing protectively near an all-white Brahma “Brangus” calf. Painted from a photo of a neighboring ranch, the painting holds much meaning for me.
In recent years, I’ve been fortunate to have exhibitions at several California galleries and art venues, including the Highland Gallery in Weaverville and the Blue Sky Gallery in Willits, where my artwork is also currently hanging in the permanent art collection at the Adventist Health Howard Memorial Hospital. In Ukiah, my paintings have been on display at the Grace Hudson Museum.
The Grace Hudson Museum is an inspiration, since I admire the pioneering artist Grace Hudson (1865-1937), known for her prolific pictorial tributes to Native Americans, including portraits of nearby Pomo tribal families and distant Pawnee members in Oklahoma Territory. While vacationing in the Territory of Hawaii, she also painted portraits of Native Hawaiians and Asian immigrants from Japan and China. I share her respect for the innate dignity of all her human subjects and her love of Nature.
Art has a way of preserving the history of human culture in concert with Nature on every earthly continent. I’m grateful to live, paint, and sing here in Mendocino County alongside a mix of ranching families, Native Americans, and a diverse group of soulful people who have followed the winding river road to the Wild West that remains here today, miraculously, in these modern times.
We believe that Round Valley—our home and the surrounding area—is a natural treasure that deserves recognition so that it’s not lost forever! Hoping to preserve our historic way of life, I’ve invited some of my ranching neighbors to demonstrate our devotion to the land in a traveling collective art show titled Ranch Art Nurturing Cultural Heritage (R.A.N.C.H.) opening in June 2024 at the Grace Hudson Museum.
My wish is to use our R.A.N.C.H. show:
- to elevate fellow ranchers as photographic artists skilled with the shutter and lens, capturing the shadows and light of their rigorous daily lives
- to present our shared landscape as the source of inspiration for their photographs, as well as for my paintings and drawings
- to encourage the public to preserve this place—and other ranchlands throughout the American West
Those participating in R.A.N.C.H. have visually recorded long rides on horseback, working with cattle near old barns and fields of hay, roundups in the mountains, and roping in the corrals. There are views from the saddle, along ridges, across fields, and through riverbeds.
My hope is to help viewers share our care for Nature’s immense beauty and our relationships with animals, domestic and wild. Perhaps viewers can gain a better understanding of the preciousness of our ranchlands and the need to preserve them and the natural environment.
Nature’s truth gives me a sense of faith, and my wish is for my imagination to continually work in tandem with my true clear animal heart. Animals teach me how to be a good mammal and how to nurture my mammalian brain with an intention to heal myself.
My eldest brother Alex was a professional bull rider and was killed in 1984 during a rodeo. My mother died of cancer six years later. I’ve learned to live my life as if every day could be my last.
Losing family members young in life instilled within me the desire to really live before I die. This has been my life mantra, my life wish: To learn how to live well until my last breath. Later I learned that it’s one thing to be alive, to simply exist—but it’s a totally different thing to actually feel alive! My experience of living close to the land and animals has taught me how to feel more alive than ever.
Family ranchlands have been a staple of California’s Heritage. Local Native Americans have cultivated an intentional, intimate relationship with Nature for thousands of years. All of us have worked for the well-being of land and animals alike. Therefore, our R.A.N.C.H. artists’ artwork is a prayer, a heartfelt prayer to the good people of California and the American West to help revitalize and sustain our longstanding stewardship. To learn more about our R.A.N.C.H. project and my artwork, please visit www.marjosart.com
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My lifetime has been spent learning about the power of inspiration—and the spark of natural curiosity—and the staggering power of the imagination. Also, about reaching for paths of inspiration, but not to force things. Rather, to inspire interest to investigate and ignite curiosity’s spark.
I thank my mother for encouraging and nurturing our imaginations when we were very young. We listened to her reading all the children’s classics to us every night—bless her! She even sang nursery rhymes to us in the car. These classic tales, along with the beat of nursery rhymes and singing, definitely created a permanent pattern in my young brain.
These stimulating experiences have become for me a lifelong practice of appreciation and expression—a means of communication—to write songs, paint animals, and create picture books for children. So, in some small way, I feel part of a larger creative cycle that sparks human imagination, which I’m thankful to share.
Besides showing my paintings, the Grace Hudson Museum has also hosted my band, The Marjo Wilson Trio, featuring the acoustic talents of Ross O’Brien on percussion and my husband Morten Jensen on bass. I love singing my original songs, playing acoustic guitar, and painting the scene of my country life with lyrics, musical tones, and beat. We call it an “Americana Acoustic Mix,” and we literally “paint with sound” together!
Originally from Denmark, Morten is a skilled sound engineer, bass, and guitar player, and we’ve enjoyed performing together since 1998. We’ve built a home recording studio, where we’ve recorded most of my original Americana folk-rock songs (featured in 11 albums released to date). We’ve enjoyed playing and recording with many exceptionally talented musicians and singer/songwriters who have moved to our area over the years. It’s been an honor and a privilege to be a part of such a vibrant and robust musical community—one which continues to feel very much like family to us. We feel immense gratitude to all of the amazing-creative-expressive souls who have helped enrich our music and our small town lives and who share in our deep love of the creative process and expression. “Viva la musica siempre!” (Con gusto!)
Our songs can be found at www.marjosmusic.com For an extended song list, please visit www.soundclick.com/marjowilson
Drumming up community involvement is an experience we enjoy, and for 12 years I organized Open Mic gatherings in Covelo. We welcomed all ages at our local café, sharing newly written songs about our country lives.
To promote early childhood education and literacy, I’ve created a musical project called Cotton Dandee at www.cottondandee.com for parents to sing with their young children. This ongoing project pairs my picture books with lyrics for recorded songs for children to read, sing, and learn with joy.
We appreciate your interest in my artwork and music, and for your support of us R.A.N.C.H. artists as we pursue our mission to help preserve our cultural heritage and the ranching traditions of the American West.
Special thanks to my husband Morten Jensen, our family, friends, and supporters, such as Ada Gates Patton, my very first Art Rep and professional racetrack farrier; my current Art Rep Suzanne Picetti, former owner of the Blue Sky Gallery, and my fellow artist Sarah Daniels. I also appreciate the assistance of friends from The Thacher School in Ojai: Caroline Flohr, an engineer, designer, and landscape artist at Caroline Flohr Design LLC; and Marian Prentice Huntington (Schinske), a former journalism professor at Sonoma State University, news reporter at The Point Reyes Light, and nonprofit executive director offering horse therapy and sports