Scottsdale Arts and Cattle Track Arts Compound are launching a creative partnership that includes a new career-development program for emerging artists, among other endeavors.
The nonprofit Scottsdale Arts will begin managing various elements of Cattle Track, located in central Scottsdale, while the compound will retain its own board and property oversight through an existing nonprofit trust. Current studio artists, residents, architecture offices and The School of Architecture (formerly at Taliesin West), will all remain in place. Meanwhile, Scottsdale Arts will support increased programming, including musical performances, talks and other events.
“As the caretaker of this place, it’s been my wish to ensure that Cattle Track continues to grow thoughtfully, artistically and with integrity into the far future,” said Janie Ellis, who has managed the compound for decades. “That’s why this new partnership with Scottsdale Arts means so much. We mutually understand that Cattle Track isn’t just about studios or exhibitions. It’s about people. It’s about building a space where creativity can thrive across disciplines and generations.”
Ellis said Scottsdale Arts brings a structure and vision to match the spirit of Cattle Track, noting that the arts organization knows how to support working artists, engage the community without disrupting it and honor the wild, handmade beauty that defines the compound.
The seeds for this new partnership were planted when Scottsdale Arts President and CEO Gerd Wuestemann, PhD, and his wife, Cece Cole, became neighbors of Cattle Track and met Ellis, whose parents, George and Rachael Ellis, homesteaded the land that became a destination for artists and arts lovers.
“Janie, my wife and I became friends early on in our tenure here in Scottsdale, and two years in, we bought our home across the street from the property,” Wuestemann said. “For us, Cattle Track is in our backyard, and this partnership is very much part of our daily lives.”
A master plan for the compound includes approximately 20,000 square feet of new art spaces to be constructed on the 11-acre campus. Among them is a historic barn, recently relocated from nearby Paradise Valley, to be repurposed for artist studios and gallery spaces.
The Barn will become the hub for ArtSpark, the career-development program for emerging artists. ArtSpark will provide recipients with a significant stipend, studio or rehearsal space for a year and career development courses. Each cohort will give back through community projects and become mentors to the following cohort.
Submissions opened on July 28 for the first ArtSpark funding cycle, which begins Oct. 1 and runs through June 30, 2026. The application deadline is Sept. 15 at 11:59 p.m. MST.
The first ArtSpark cohort will be introduced during a special event, the ArtSpark Kickoff Barn-Raising, on Friday, Sept. 26, at 6 p.m. The event will include a tour of Cattle Track and a brief talk about the new programs.
In addition to ArtSpark, Scottsdale Arts will implement a new Artists-in-Residence program at Cattle Track, where established national and international visual and performing artists will complete residencies that range in length from one week to two months. Artists will share their creative prowess and process through talks and workshops, and works may be premiered and exhibited at Cattle Track or through one of Scottsdale Arts’ other departments.
Scottsdale Arts operates Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts, Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art (SMoCA), Scottsdale Public Art, Scottsdale Arts Learning & Innovation, Canal Convergence and Civic Center LIVE.
The results of one Scottsdale Arts-related residency will soon be on view when “James Perkins: Burying Paintings” opens at SMoCA on Sept. 20. Perkins, a New York-based artist, began a residency at Cattle Track Arts Compound in October 2024 to create new works for the solo exhibition. His artistic practice includes partially burying artworks and allowing the natural elements to alter the outcome of each piece. Perkins returned to Cattle Track in April to “harvest” the buried works, which had been transformed through sun exposure, winter rain, dust storms and even a pack of coyotes, which had interacted with the art.
Two other upcoming Scottsdale Arts exhibitions have ties to Cattle Track. On Oct. 6, Scottsdale Public Art will debut “Artists of Cattle Track” in the Civic Center Public Gallery at Scottsdale Civic Center Library. The show includes a variety of works by artists who currently or recently had studio space at the compound, including Mary Myers, Matt Magee and Mark McDowell. A reception with the artists will be held from 5 to 6:30 p.m., Thursday, Oct. 9, at the library gallery.
In association with that exhibition, Scottsdale Arts Learning & Innovation has organized “Whimsical Layered Paper Art Scenes,” a special Library Creatives event featuring exhibiting Cattle Track artist Aimee Ollinger at 10:30 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 18. This free, first-come-first-served activity at the library includes materials and instruction for making 3D layered paper art.
Learning & Innovation has also organized an exhibition that features some past Cattle Track artists. This show, titled “A Pivotal Point in Time: Art in Scottsdale in the 1970s,” will have an opening from 6–8 p.m., Friday, Oct. 3, in the Center Space gallery at Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts. In recognition of the venue’s 50th anniversary this year, many of the artists in the show were featured in early exhibitions at the center, but some also lived or worked at Cattle Track, including Philip C. Curtis and Fritz Scholder.
Cattle Track began in 1937 as George and Rachael Ellis’s 10-acre homestead. Cowboys were known for driving cattle along the nearby Arizona Canal, giving the area its nickname. In 1999, the compound was added to the National Register of Historic Places.
The compound has historically been a place of free-spiritedness and multidisciplinary creativity, bringing together creative communities and inspiring generations of artists and thinkers. Revered Arizona artists like Curtis and Scholder made their homes at or near Cattle Track. Famous sculptor Louise Nevelson and future Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor were frequent Cattle Track visitors.
The Ellises themselves used the compound for their creativity. In addition to George’s building projects, Rachael designed costumes and worked in fabric art. Their son David Ellis crafted fiberglass racecar bodies there, including one that Mario Andretti drove to victory in 1969 at the Indy 500. And through the ensuing decades, Janie Ellis has kept that creative spirit alive through her indomitable leadership in managing the compound.
“A campus like Cattle Track, tucked away in the heart of our city, just doesn’t exist anywhere else,” Wuestemann said. “And there’s certainly no other Janie Ellis, with her incredible drive, never taking no for an answer and always looking toward what’s next. This historic campus is a unique treasure, and Janie’s perspective is particularly wonderful: that Cattle Track shall never become a monument to someone’s memory but rather a place respectful of the past, irreverent in its present and constantly evolving into the future.”
