Jennifer Rife - Wyoming Women to Watch

Jennifer Rife spent most of her life in the West, growing up in a rural town in southeastern Colorado. Her parents were constant makers and innovators, welding or sewing objects for their home. Art fascinated Rife from a young age, and she pursued a Bachelor of Fine Arts with a major in Art History and studio concentration in clay from the University of Kansas. An avid visitor of museums, land art sites, and petroglyphs, Rife found that while most artworks were intended to be permanent, she wanted hers to only evoke emotion and a fleeting sense of time, rather than something material.

Rife moved to the high plains of Cheyenne, Wyoming in 2001. As an artist, Rife works in her studio with materials ranging from clay, leather, dried plants, plumbing pipes, and other cast_ objects, turning these disparate materials into one unified piece. To complete the work, Rife takes her objects on long drives, stopping in random landscapes on public land to situate, photograph, and then disassemble her objects, creating a momentary installation that leaves the land untouched. Her photographs, titled by the location coordinates, are by-products of the artwork, generally intended to be displayed in an ephemeral nature, such as light projections, or handed out as postcards.

Until her retirement in 2023, Rife was the exhibition and design supervisor for the Laramie County Library System. Rife has exhibited her work throughout the United States and is included in the public collections of the Wyoming State Museum, the Nicolaysen Art Museum, the Southeast Colorado Arts Council, and in numerous private collections. Her work has been featured in books and articles; and the artist has earned multiple recognitions and a fellowship with the Wyoming Arts Council.

Come meet Jennifer on November 7th, at our Artist Reception!