The Story Behind Our Marquee Art

Some ideas show up quietly. This one arrived in big, bold letters — the kind that stop you mid-scroll and stay with you for days.

Every piece of marquee art we make traces back to three signs we couldn’t stop thinking about: one in a songwriter’s room in Austin, one on a town square in Jackson Hole, and one lighting up a booth at the NFR in Las Vegas. Here’s how they turned into the faux marquee canvases hanging in homes across the country today.

It Started With a Honky Tonk

When Miranda Lambert launched her record label, Big Loud Texas, she asked her longtime friends Amie and Jolie Sikes of Junk Gypsy to design the label’s home in Austin — a historic 1877 limestone house they filled with tooled leather, velvet, vintage finds and a whole lot of Texas attitude.

Tucked inside was the writers’ room: gold velvet walls, a curved banquette, guitars by the fireplace, and hanging on the wall, a custom light-up HONKY TONK sign. Bold, a little rebellious, and completely at home. The moment we saw it in Miranda’s reel, we couldn’t shake it. It wasn’t simply wall décor. It gave the room a sense of place, and it told you exactly who lived there.

Watch Miranda Lambert’s first look at the Big Loud Texas House on Instagram

The Big Loud Texas House, designed by Junk Gypsy Co. for Miranda Lambert’s Big Loud Texas.

Then Came Jackson

Then there was the Million Dollar Cowboy Bar. That sign kept showing up — in photos, in travel posts, in every scroll through Jackson Hole — glowing over the town square the way it has since 1937. Last summer, we finally went. Seeing it in person was every bit as fun as we’d hoped, and yes, we pulled up to the bar and sat on one of those famous saddle bar stools. There’s something about Jackson that gets western design exactly right: rustic without feeling rough, luxurious without feeling precious, historic without feeling dated. Some signs just mark a place. That one is the place.

The Million Dollar Cowboy Bar, Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Photo: Frank Minjarez via Pexels.

And Then, Vegas

And then, voilà. That December, scrolling through NFR week, Brit West’s account stopped us cold: big marquee letters lit up over her booth at Cowboy Christmas. Because who doesn’t love marquee letters with lights? (Go give her a follow. We love her style.) That was it. We were off to build our own, and a few days later, we made Nashville.

View Brit West’s post on Instagram

Marquee letters at Brit West’s Cowboy Christmas booth during the NFR in Las Vegas.

Nashville, the first of our faux marquees.

All the Marquee, None of the Wiring

Here’s the thing about real marquee letters: they’re heavy, they need an electrician, they can cost a small fortune, and a good vintage one is nearly impossible to find. We wanted the feeling without any of that.

So we made them faux. Every piece of our marquee art is a faux marquee on canvas — the look of a vintage sign, weathered and worn, with bulb accents in the design, but no bulbs, no wiring and none of the heavy metal. It hangs like any other canvas. It fits over a sofa, above a bar back or down a long barndo wall, in sizes all the way up to 60″.

Nashville is still the one people love most. Then came the Texas towns — Fort Worth, the Stockyards, Houston, Round Top, Lone Star.

Then You Made Them Personal

What surprised us most was how quickly it became personal. You started asking for your own words: your hometown, your ranch name, the dance hall where you met, the city where you left a little of your heart. And we loved that.

The most beautiful ranch homes aren’t built around trends. They’re built around stories: where you’ve been, what you love, what’s been passed down and what you’ve made your own. A custom marquee becomes part of that story, whether it’s a family name over the fireplace, a ranch name in the entry or a home bar with a name all its own. See some of our favorite custom marquee designs →

Our Personalized Western Marquee: your words, on weathered turquoise canvas.

Live Western, Beautifully

At Cowgirl Home & Ranch, we believe western design can be both bold and beautiful. A room can have weathered timber and fine leather, rustic stone and warm lighting, vintage inspiration and polished finishes. And sometimes, the piece that makes the whole room memorable is the one you didn’t expect.

That’s what we love about our marquee collection. It has a little bit of honky tonk, a little bit of Jackson Hole, a little bit of Cowboy Christmas, and a lot of personality.

Dream big. Live western. Make it yours.