Mike Wise vividly remembers his 9-year-old self being mesmerized by the half-hour PBS series “The Joy of Painting,” which debuted in early 1983. “I watched Bob Ross pretty regularly,” he says of the cult-favorite show’s cheerfully reassuring, bearded, and permed creator and host. “I loved...
David Kammerzell brings images of the Old West to vibrant new life by combining carefully researched photos, diligently studied classic illustration styles, and his own contemporary sensibilities. “The West has always been a romanticized place,” says the Denver, Colorado-based artist. “I want to idealize or...
Erik Gonzales’ large-scale creations might at first appear to be paintings. After all, they hang on the wall and possess a boldly abstracted pictorial quality. But, in fact, they are fashioned from mixtures of powdered marble and clay, sand, earth, polymers, denatured alcohol, and other...
LaQuincey Reed is building his reputation as a figurative sculptor of bronzes that, though mostly sized to fit on a tabletop or pedestal, possess impressive monumentality. “My goal,” he says, “is to pay attention to their forms so that they feel bigger than they actually...
Susan McKinney’s creations in clay, and now sometimes glass, embody the meeting point of art, design, and craft. “A lot of the work I do starts with my background in industrial design,” she says, describing that role as “advocating for the human experience in objects...
You might say it all started with Frank Lloyd Wright. Vernon Swaback, founder of the Scottsdale, Arizona-based interior design firm Studio V, holds a place in history as the renowned architect’s last surviving apprentice. When he was only 17 years old, Swaback came to Arizona’s...
Oftentimes, museum and personal art collections are built around specific genres, be it Abstract, Classical Realism, Cubism, or any number of the other “isms.” But that’s beginning to change more and more. In a recent exhibit at the Tucson Museum of Art in Arizona, Chief Curator...
Many of Jordan Schnitzer’s earliest memories revolve around art. When he was in first grade in his hometown of Portland, Oregon — where he still lives today — his mother, Arlene Schnitzer, enrolled in art school and after encouragement from her teachers, she opened the...
Western art auctions and sales in the final months of 2020 showed the genre’s lasting ability to inspire, especially during a period rife with uncertainty. In a year described by the Eiteljorg Museum’s president as difficult for artists, events that champion Western works have been...
In his book, Under Western Skies, historian Donald Worster writes that “regionalism is about telling differences or it has nothing to tell.” When I read this recently, I thought of WA&A, and how each issue is a collection of creative expressions that point out these...