It’s a warm, windy May afternoon in the western Sandhills of Nebraska. Cattle dot the hills covered with grass, and ranch wife Audrey Powles heads to a horse barn near the corrals. It’s dusty and hot in the long barn, with tack lining the walls and saddle blankets piled in the corner. She grabs a curry comb, but instead of brushing down a horse, she runs the comb over the coarse hair of a cow.

A hand-painted canvas drop cloth creates a backdrop behind a platform, which sits in the corner next to pens and feed troughs. Portrait lights stand with their translucent umbrellas, and Audrey places a hat on the brushed cow. Not just any hat, but an old-style lady’s hat – round and worn, with a pattern of soft pink roses and bright pink netting over the top. Audrey offers the cow a treat, then quickly backs away to snap photos before the cow tosses the hat off in search for more treats, licking Audrey’s shirt and hands.

The cow, named Baby, is Audrey’s latest portrait subject in a series of fine art photography she calls “Cows in Hats.” Audrey photographs cows wearing vintage women’s hats in a custom make-shift portrait studio she has constructed in a barn near her home just west of Bingham.

Her artwork has quickly gained in popularity since she went public with it in late 2022. It has been featured in dozens of galleries around the United States and Europe, earning Audrey awards and a loyal following of “Cows in Hats.”

For Audrey, the cows are more than merely portrait subjects. Many are tame “pet” cows, favorites among the herd of Gelbvieh-Angus cross cattle that her family raises. These favorites get names – Tilly, Shortie, Toots, Agnes, Velma, Patty and Baby – just to list a few. And her group of favorites is continually growing; close friends and family tease her about being the “cow whisperer.”

Audrey loves to carry a bucket (or two) of cake – a pressed seed product that cattle enjoy – as treats for the cows when she checks pastures. She even carries a hairbrush in the side-by-side ATV, brushing out stray cactus and burrs from the cattle she stops to inspect. Each cow is special, each one with a personality as unique as her markings or physical features.

Being around livestock and country life at an early age cultivated Audrey’s love of animals. Audrey grew up on a farm east of Hastings where they raised corn and soybeans and kept cattle and horses.

In grade school, Audrey met a lifelong friend who became an important inspiration for her journey into photography. Her friend Steph went to college for photography, and during that time they worked together in the Walmart photo department. When Steph began shooting weddings as a professional photographer, she invited Audrey along to be second shooter. From then on, Audrey was hooked on photography.

Audrey moved to Chadron in 2010, where she met husband Bryon Powles and moved to Bingham in 2011. She started her own photography business the next year.

Besides running her photography business, Audrey ranches with Bryon. She ensures the well-being of the cattle by monitoring pastures for water, salt, minerals, and animal health, providing feed and maintaining accurate cattle records for the ranch. She manages night calving and has successfully pulled calves by herself.

The inspiration for Audrey’s “Cows in Hats” idea struck her on a summer day in 2019 while she was checking cattle in a pasture, a task she had performed thousands of times.

Purple wildflowers were blooming profusely near a lake where the herd was grazing. While observing the group, Audrey specifically searched for Velma, a special pet cow. On a whim, she crafted a wreath of the purple wildflowers and set it on Velma’s head.

“To my surprise, she wasn’t bothered and let me take a few cell phone photos of her wearing the floral crown,” Audrey said.

That same summer, Audrey had been cleaning out her husband’s grandparents’ abandoned home and stumbled across a collection of vintage hats, still in good condition. Audrey especially liked a beautiful hat of pheasant feathers, likely handmade. She wondered if Velma would stand for a photograph while wearing the hat. Audrey returned to the pasture, photographing Velma in the feathered hat.

Audrey photographed other pet cows wearing hats from the vintage collection. Not sure what others would think of cows in hats, she sat on the photos for several years.

Audrey has always loved painting as a hobby and began experimenting with a “painterly” style of fine art editing in her photographs, giving them the painted feel – inspired by masters like Renoir and Rembrandt – that she longed to create with her brushes.

With encouragement from Bryon, in 2022 Audrey entered a portrait contest through a professional print lab. She won an honorable mention with a painterly style portrait of her cat Popeye wearing a bow tie. Audrey received a grant for a creative project through that print lab. With the grant, she weaved the painterly style of editing into the “Cows in Hats” photos, making artful photos worthy of a gallery.

A local artist suggested she submit photos to an online call for entries to art galleries. She had three pieces chosen to go to a gallery in Long Island, New York, and won the competition overall with Velma’s portrait.

As Audrey’s art is growing in popularity, so has her collection of vintage hats. What started with the hats she found that day in her husband’s grandparents’ house has expanded to include hats she found at yard sales and antique stores, and gifts from friends and family members. Each hat is unique, and Audrey enjoys the selection of the hat to match the cow – sometimes letting the cows make their own choice between two hats.

Audrey hopes to learn more about all the hats, the assorted styles and stories behind them. She has considered creating a coffee-table style of book featuring photos of the cows and stories about the hats. 

Powles plans to continue to create fine art with the growing hat collection. Her artwork has expanded to include calves in a collection of antique chairs, as well as horses in the painterly style. She has a solo exhibition this summer at the Carnegie Arts Center in Alliance.

While she’s busy with photography, most days find Audrey in the pasture with her family’s cattle. The ranch and livestock business takes priority to her photography business and art. “It is what allows me to be able to do what I do.”

She hopes people see the beauty and reality of her art – that the cows really are wearing hats, the calves really are sitting in chairs. “I’ve been blessed with some phenomenal cattle who are gentle and patient. Many of those will allow me to put hats on their heads; some will not, but I won’t hold it against them. And that’s just fine.”