Wyoming Arts Council

Wyoming Artist Ernie Marsh Awarded National Heritage Fellowship

Featured News, Program News | April 17, 2025

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Ernie Marsh, a bit and spur maker from Big Horn County, has been awarded a National Heritage Fellowship, the nation’s highest honor in the folk and traditional arts.

Marsh is recognized for his excellence in bit and spur making. He lives and works at his shop in rural Big Horn County outside of Lovell. Marsh is particularly well-known for making high-quality bridle bits in the California Vaquero style. Marsh is also dedicated to maintaining the tradition by passing it on to his own students and creating opportunities for others to learn about the tradition. In 1998, he became a founding member of the Traditional Cowboys Arts Association (TCAA), an organization devoted to preserving and promoting traditional art forms that are associated with Western cowboy culture. Through TCAA, Marsh has spent years educating about the significance and finer details of bit and spur making. 

“Receiving a National Heritage Fellowship is an impressive accomplishment, and Ernie deserves this recognition for his work,” said Josh Chrysler, Folklorist at the Wyoming Arts Council, which nominated Marsh for the award. “Not only is his work absolutely gorgeous while  retaining function and utility, but Ernie has also devoted a major part of his career to teaching others and passing on his knowledge so that this important Western tradition continues to thrive in Wyoming and across the West.” 

The National Heritage Fellowships recognize the recipients’ artistic excellence and support their continuing contributions to the country’s traditional arts heritage. Marsh joins four previous National Heritage Fellows from Wyoming: Don King, Western saddlemaker, 1991; Eva McAdams, Shoshone crafts and beadwork, 1996; Martin Goicoechea, Basque bertsolari poetry, 2003; and James Jackson, leatherworker, 2019. Marsh, along with other recipients from across the nation, will be honored in Washington, D.C. in September 2025.

Fellowship recipients are nominated by the public, often by members of their own communities, and then reviewed by a panel of experts. Visit the National Endowment for the Arts website for more information about the Fellowships or to submit a nomination.

For additional information, please contact Josh Chrysler, joshua.chrysler@wyo.gov, or 307-256-2010.

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