Artist blends the stone age with the 21st century

Trina Brittain, Rocket Miner via Wyoming News Exchange
Posted 5/22/22

During the prehistoric cultural age, which was about three million years ago, people used sharpened bone, flintknapped stones, flakes, chips and bits of rock as weapons and tools.

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Artist blends the stone age with the 21st century

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ROCK SPRINGS — During the prehistoric cultural age, which was about three million years ago, people used sharpened bone, flintknapped stones, flakes, chips and bits of rock as weapons and tools. 

A Sweetwater County artist has chosen these items to design jewelry, wall décor and other creations. 

Superior resident Cindy Elg has been making artifact artwork since 1985. She became a licensed dealer during the Wyoming Centennial year. She has one piece in archives at the Wyoming state capitol.

“My work was crude in 1985, at least that is my opinion,” said Elg. “As time went on, my creativity and talent improved, and now I feel very comfortable with my art.” 

All of Elg’s work is hand-painted backgrounds, and she has several figures she can use. The figure is filled in with artifact chips and then coated with a plastic, high gloss coating. 

She entered one of her first pieces, the Wyoming Bucking Horse, in a National Art Show at the Community Fine Arts Center in Rock Springs. She won an Honorable Mention at that show. She also enters the Sweetwater County Fair every year. 

“I was overwhelmed to win Overall Grand Champion for an End of the Trail painting,” she shared. “It was my first try at an actual painting. I still have a hard time grasping the fact that I painted that picture.” 

One of her Wyoming bucking horse chiptures won an Overall Grand in the art division. 

Last year, she took Grand Champion in the crafts division for a purple and gold jewel-covered cross in a frame with a hand-painted background. 

“I craft and create about eight different items,” she said. “I get bored with working on one, so I pick up something else. I have also learned from attending all the craft events, that having variety is a good thing.” 

Elg revealed that she is able “to see those things she’s meant to create in her dreams.” 

“It is my passion,” she said.

She pointed out that making wall hangings with arrowheads has been done for many years. 

“I don’t use the actual arrowheads in my chiptures,” she explained. “What I use are the chips or spawls.” 

Elg was given several five-gallon buckets of chips when an avid arrowhead hunter from Superior passed away. 

“People give me chips and I have even bought a crateful from a garage sale,” she said. “I traded one of my pieces to a flintknapper over in Mountain View for a box of chips from that area. They are really vibrant colors of stone.” 

Elg appreciates the people who have supported her as a local artist over the years.

“I would like to thank those who have some of my pieces,” she said. “I hope they will enjoy them forever. They all have inspired me further into my art. I consider my craft as therapy and I give praise for the talent that God has given me.” 

She and her husband Vern were born in Northern Minnesota. They were married in 1974 and left Minnesota. Since he was a pipefitter, they traveled with jobs until coming to Wyoming in 1980 for a job at Tipton. 

“We decided we liked it here,” she mentioned. “We were hired at Moyer’s Service out at Red Desert.” 

Moyer’s Service was a cafe, motel and service station. 

“The owners had many stories of hunting arrowheads, and all the walls in the cafe were covered with arrowhead boards,” she described. “Our life out there was grand.” 

The couple bought a home in Superior by 1985. They were employed by the city for nearly 20 years. Vern retired in 2012 due to illness, and she retired just a few years ago. 

“I can now devote more time at home with Vern and our little Chi-Weenie dog, Blue,” she said. “I have plenty of time now to put into my arts and crafts and sign up for every show that I can.

“Vern and I enjoy our life here in Superior,” she said. “We are grateful to be able to see our wild horses, deer, elk, sage chickens and to have this amazing and history-filled desert land to explore, just a few miles away.” 

Elg recalls as a child, her family would visit Wyoming from Minnesota, to camp and visit Yellowstone.

“I think I decided back then to someday make Wyoming my home,” she revealed. “And at that time, I was going to become a cowboy.” 

She noted that “most either love (Wyoming) or hate it,” and ‘This God Forsaken Land,’ a poem by Juanita Leasch, “tells it all” about how she feels about the state.