Thea Marx

In the Spring of 1997 Thea Marx took over management of the Western Design Conference in Cody, Wyoming. The conference was a 3 year old fledgling handed to her in a cardboard box with “Good Luck” scrolled on the top. In the six years following she would re-make the conference into an internationally known show for fine western design. After thirteen years of saturated involvement in the discipline, Marx is considered the expert in Contemporary Western Design. She continues to inform the public about the genre through her book, shows, lectures, website and magazine articles.

Her passion of all things western has led her to devoting all her energy to working with the craftspeople and artists and growing an organization that will proudly promote their work.

At the WDC, she helped new and budding artists develop into experienced and acknowledged creators of fine western design while endeavoring to promote the masterful works of the era’s finest established craftsmen. She learned from the masters of the genre, grew with the newcomers and loyally fought for western’s recognition in the design realm.

Thea has continued elevating the awareness of the genre by establishing venues for western design in Los Angeles, Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and Indianapolis as well as consulting on various design projects around the country. Her book, Contemporary Western Design, is the handbook of new western design and her website by the same name provides a platform for artists to gain exposure everyday, worldwide. Her show, Style West was created to support western design, arts and traditional craft by giving artists a reasonably priced showplace with an exceptional audience and guaranteed publicity.

Thea’s broad background includes management, marketing, public relations, social work and finance. Her days of growing up on a cow/calf operation in central Wyoming and extensive travel abroad, has done much to fashion her personal approach to life by giving her solid values with a flair for the cosmopolitan.