You may have seen the weathered faces, shadowed in black and white, staring you down from posters in storefront windows around Elko. Listen closely – with the help of your smartphone – and they each have something to share about the life and work of a cowboy. 

On July 18, 2019, acclaimed contemporary cowboy singer/songwriter Mike Beck returns to Elko and the Western Folklife Center stage for a one-night concert of acoustic music and stories. Add even more fun to your evening before the concert with a free docent-led walking tour of our downtown Elko storefront exhibition, Portraits of the Gathering!

Looking for something to do with the family during Graduation Weekend? The Western Folklife Center has several activities for the whole family to enjoy. Whether it’s taking in some great cowboy poetry and music in a concert Saturday night, finding something special in our Gift Shop, enjoying the You’ve Got Spurs exhibition in the Wiegand Gallery, or doing the Portraits of the Gathering walking tour around downtown Elko, the historic Pioneer Hotel is the place to be in the heart of old Elko.

Between the Western Folklife Center, Northeastern Nevada Museum, and the Cowboy Arts & Gear Museum, there is something exciting happening every day between Monday, May 6 and Saturday, May 11 in Elko, Nevada. Pick up an Elko Museums Passport for the kids, then have fun checking out each of our three Elko area museums to win a Passport prize!

We've been sponsoring our community events for several years now, and such "parties" as Southwind St. Patrick's Day celebration on Saturday, March 16 are definitely the place to be in Elko. It was 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm (or maybe…8:30 if the band forgots to step down)…you can always plan on a great time, with a happy crowd wearin' the Green and a bit of the ol' Irish sing-along, and more.

The 35th National Cowboy Poetry Gathering was a lot of fun, and we're glad to have been able to share our event with so many wonderful folks. If you've not made it to Elko yet, it's not too early to start planning for our 36th, January 27-February 1, 2020. Here are a few of the great moments, captured by photographer Charlie Ekburg of Sweet Light Photography. Enjoy!

Country music legends Marty Stuart and His Fabulous Superlatives were in Elko for their first time at the Gathering, with their “Way Out West” Tour! The tour celebrates their love of the West and on Thursday, January 31, in an 8:30-10:00 pm show at the Elko Convention Center, the crowd went wild. It was, indeed, a a toe-tapping, spine-tingling treat of an evening! Stuart and music producer Jim Rooney also hosted a fascinating discussion of Marty's career, music and songwriting earlier in the day!

At the 35th National Cowboy Poetry Gathering, we're inviting practicing leatherworkers – intermediate experience and above – to open new avenues of creativity and improve their floral carving designs in a three-day workshop!

A border by cartography standards, the 49th parallel distinguishes Canada from the United States ̶ on maps, anyway. But try telling these musicians that as they sing themselves from side to side and back again! Making beauty out of coexistence and proving that lines are never quite what they seem, the five bards of the borderlands in our 8:00 pm Saturday night show exemplify the artist as ambassador. Sharing the Elko Convention Center Auditorium in Bridging the 49th are Jamie Fox, Alex Kusturok, Corb Lund, Sid Marty and Colter Wall: read on to meet them!

Join us January 28-February 2, 2019 for the 35th National Cowboy Poetry Gathering, a milestone anniversary for the grand-daddy of them all! Tickets Now On Sale!

We are pleased to present the following poets, prosewriters, storytellers and singer-songwriters and western bands – several performing across genres.

The Western Folklife Center was proud to present a National Cowboy Poetry Gathering favorite, Andy Hedges, in concert on May 4. The evening's activities, including local youth performers, was free of charge as a thank you to the many volunteers and sponsors contributing to the success of the most recent Gathering.

The Western Folklife Center is known for bringing interesting artists to Elko for performances and workshops throughout the year. For our first in 2018, join us on Saturday, March 24th, when we present – with host, GRAMMY award-winning singer/songwriter Rick Nestler of Rick Nestler and Donna “The Banjolele Lady!” 

We've been having a great time going through photos of the 34th National Cowboy Poetry Gathering by our photographers Jessica Lifland and Charlie Ekburg. We wanted to share some of them with you -- Enjoy!

It's live! It's colorful! It's fun! It’s the online daily schedule for the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering! The full daily schedule is embedded (annually in January for the applicable Gathering only) on our website and it's also a smartphone app.

Muzzie Braun and his four boys--Cody, Willy, Micky and Gary--performed at the Elko Cowboy Poetry Gathering six times between 1988 and 1994. Muzzie Braun and the Boys are all grown up now, with successful musical careers of their own. Cody and Willy formed the band Reckless Kelly, and Gary and Micky started Micky and the Motorcars. Both bands have achieved national success with their Western roots music. It’s been 23 years since Muzzie and his boys have performed at the Gathering, and we are super excited to welcome three out of five members of the original band to the 2018 event. Muzzie, Cody and Willy Braun will perform together at the Gathering again.

The Western Folklife Center is pleased to host an exhibition, Land, Language and Clay, of Dennis Parks' works. Selected pieces from this exhibition are available for your collection. Here we share individual photos and the sales list. Please contact our Gift Shop at 888-880-5885 or 775-738-7508, extension 243 for purchasing assistance. Dennis' son Ben Parks carries on his father’s legacy of ceramic artwork and a few of his pieces are also on display and for sale through the Western Folklife Center Gift Shop.

Andy Wilkinson’s poem “Mining the Mother Lode” is a lament for the diminishing waters of the once enormous Ogallala Aquifer caused by the forces of “progress.” The poem was made into an animated poem-film with the help of Rebecca Shapiro and Jeremy Boreing as part of the Western Folklife Center’s Moving Rural Verse project, which created collaborations between poets and filmmakers around the subject of water in the West. By artfully fusing poetry and video, the Moving Rural Verse poem-films hope to nurture a deeper understanding of rural America and kindle important conversation about critical issues. Click here to watch the film!

The 34th National Cowboy Poetry Gathering is chock-full of phenomenal performances, captivating stories, and enlightening learning opportunities. With so much going on and so many wonderful shows it is nearly impossible to choose just a few to highlight. We will continue to share the best of the Gathering in this blog so tune in often. We are very excited that Muzzie Braun is returning to Elko with his sons Willy and Cody, of Reckless Kelly. And of course we can't wait to present the wonderful traditions of the Basque culture, including the improvised poetry sparring called bertsolariak.

by Katie Aiken

No doubt you’ve heard by now that there are sheep on the 2018 National Cowboy Poetry Gathering poster. Sheep! On a cowboy event! Is it true???

Well…yes. The poster artwork depicts sheep – creamy shapes amidst a burst of saturated colors and living textures that call up the deep, shifting palette of our big Western skies and the hazy boundaries of what we define as our Western landscape.