The Cowgirl Project- Colleen Wudel
Cochrane, Alberta, Canada
“Her Own Way” on the easle and complete.
Colleen Wudel did not grow up calling herself a Cowgirl.
A soft underpainting of “Her Own Way”
For years, she stood on the ground at brandings. She worked. She helped. She did what needed doing. She and her husband custom grazed steers in central Alberta, and he taught ranch roping clinics for years. She was there for all of it — just not holding a rope.
Until one day, in her mid-forties, she decided she was done being ground crew.
She was going to learn.
The first branding she roped at was longhorns. If you’ve ever watched a longhorn move, you know they’re quick. Colleen laughed telling me about it — said it felt like trying to rope a rabbit. There is something wildly humbling about learning a new skill in front of people who have done it their whole lives. And she did it anyway.
That’s what gets me.
It was a constant debate of how much to paint the cows versus leave them as soft suggestions.
She wasn’t born into the identity of “cowgirl.” She stepped into it. She chose it. She practiced until she could hold her own and do her part at any branding.
And that became part of who she is.
A couple of years ago, Colleen’s husband passed away. She has since retired to a town life. But you can hear it when she speaks — ranching is not something you retire from in your bones. A great deal of her identity still lies in the fact that she could show up, saddle up, and pull her weight.
Being a cowgirl is not about when you started.
It’s not about how early you learned.
It’s not about whether you were born into it.
It’s about deciding you belong.
That is the heartbeat of the Cowgirl Project — reclaiming cowgirl as a mindset, not a skill set. Capable. Courageous. Community-oriented. Women who worked, endured, loved, and showed up fully in the life they built.
Colleen is the perfect example of that. I love that she is living proof that you are never too old to learn something new. And you don’t have to be born into it to belong.