This book presents the work of more than 150 women artists of the 19th and 20th centuries from west of the Mississippi River. The first half of the book consists of fifteen interpretive essays examining artists in a broad range of media (photography, quiltmaking, painting, printmaking, clay art, sculpture, digital art and more). Concepts of community, identity, spirituality, and locality are explored in interdisciplinary contexts.

The second half of the book is an alphabetical directory of the artists discussed in the essays, with biographical information, notes on exhibitions and collections, and the artists' own statements about their work and their visions. The text is lavishly illustrated with 342 reproductions, including 62 in color.

The essays were written by Dorothy R. Zopf, Kate M. O'Neill, Susan R. Ressler, Margaret D. Jacobs, Susan Peterson, Tee A. Corinne, Gail E. Tremblay, Tiska Blankenship, Peter E. Palmquist, Martha A. Sandweiss, Joan M. Jensen, Terri Cohn, Corinne Whitaker, and Betty LaDuke. There is an afterword by Phoebe Farris.