Jordyn Payne

On a stifling summer evening under an auburn sky, just miles outside the peaks of the 3 sisters in the Organ Mountains, an artist was born. Jordyn Ashley Payne, first daughter to Vic and Vicky Payne, began her life on August 17th 1989 in Alamogordo, New Mexico. After leaving the hospital she was taken to her home in the reputable Lincoln County, following four generations of ancestors born before her.

Two years later the family moved north, where she would begin her childhood in the rocky mountains of Pagosa Springs, Colorado. From a very young age the artist in her became apparent. Her attention to detail and talent for vibrant creation first exposed in adolescence. At only age 10 her vivid imagination and talent for creating color was depicted in her first painting, a seascape, crafted only from her mind’s eye, thousands of miles from the closest ocean. For the young artist, this was only the tip of the iceberg.

When she isn’t painting, Jordyn’s most personal interests remain in the great outdoors, reflecting so much of the artwork she has fashioned. In the rivers of Alaska her passion for fly fishing began, amid her many talents she is an avid and skilled fly -fisherwoman. Between the red rocks of Utah she has spent time deepening her perception of color and closeness to nature. From the deserts of New Mexico, to the peaks of the Tetons and through the vast forests of Yellowstone she has hiked, fished, explored and absorbed the meaning of the wild throughout her young life. Amidst her travels she has also painted alongside many artists including Robert Moore, Troy Collins, and Michael Ome Untiedt.

A self-taught artist, it is from these experiences that she has captivated her audience with her unmatchable ability to capture such intriguing hues and shades of color with the brutal but beautiful honesty of the outdoors—to experience familiarity, the cold of winter, the smell of rain, the sound of aspen leaves quaking, or the kiss of sun on your skin—through her artwork. The feeling her artwork can bring can be matched only by the actual presence of the humbled artist. This keen ability earned her the Gilly Fales Award in 2014 for young aspiring artists, displayed by a painting in the Buffalo Bill Center of the West.

Jordy, whom she is known to by close family and friends’, makes her home on the outskirts of Yellowstone in the historical Cody, Wyoming. She is surrounded by family, her parents and many siblings also living close by. It is in this old western town that she has written many a song to play on her acoustic guitar, gives painting lessons to her nephew, finds new inspirations for her newest pieces and atop her career spends her time being a loving daughter, sister, aunt, and friend.