Our Story
Jentel embodies the vision of Neltje, who established the artist residency in January 2001. Within a unique setting in the Piney Creek Valley, Neltje came to experience the peace and calm from a Wyoming landscape that also offers a healing power for mind and spirit. She realized the potential to share the landscape and the life-giving experience with other creative individuals.
Five new and two renovated structures reflect the agricultural and historical setting and echo the sweeping lines of the foothills and mountains.
In September 2002, Executive Director Mary Jane Edwards and Residency Program Manager Lynn Reeves began working side by side with Neltje to take Jentel from a dream to reality.
PHOTO CREDIT: Lindsay Linton Buk, Women in Wyoming
Upon her passing on April 30, 2021, Neltje gifted her estate to the University of Wyoming, which includes both Jentel Artist Residency and the Neltje Center for Excellence in Creativity and the Arts. Located just two miles from Jentel, the Neltje Center distinguishes the University of Wyoming as a leader in the education and development of visual, literary, and performing artists and as a catalyst for Wyoming’s creative economy.
Learn more about the vision for the Neltje Center here.
Neltje’s vision and passion for the arts and the Wyoming landscape continue to be shared with the Sheridan area and the greater arts community for years to come.
RESIDENT JUSTIN ZIELKE WITH NELTJE, 2020.
Neltje on Jentel
“Who knows where or how ideas germinate? To pinpoint a moment in time when the concept of creating Jentel came into being would be like determining when I wanted to be a painter. Was it when I failed art in the third grade or when frozen in an uncomfortable marriage with two small children; I had to find a way to communicate my visions and feelings? I just don’t know.
My background is in the arts. I was brought up in a book publishing family. Authors, actors, actresses, Broadway producers, book and magazine giants, editors, financial gurus, copyboys all were a part of my young life.
Why here in Sheridan County, Wyoming? Why in these rolling hills and valleys east of the Big Horn Mountains? The space. The unlimited vistas of a sea like landscape undulating west to the massive forms of the mountains bring a sense of stability and thereness to those who live here and those fortunate enough to visit. A sky and heaven that stretches from horizon to horizon uninterrupted. A paucity of people to infringe on this space. We who live here live with a neighboring hand. For me psychic space has been the greatest gift. Just plain room to be, to question, to think, to create, and to love.
My focus was clear in the construction of the residency buildings, the interiors, exteriors, and studios [...] I wanted to create a home and work space that would nurture, comfort, and support the creative spirit. My dream is to offer an artist time apart to think, gather, evaluate, digest, and create. What better heritage to leave on this earth?”
Neltje, Founder 9/23/03