Mosaic artist Marlea Taylor began her fine-art career in printmaking. But frustrated with the limits of working on paper, she decided to delve into mosaics, using tiles and repurposed broken pottery and plates. She hasn’t looked back since. “I’m a retired teacher and taught kindergarten through...
Jamie Burnes creates his art through encounters with environmental detritus. The found objects he uses in his sculptures reveal themselves as tree trunks, petrified wood, stones, and other natural materials. It’s the happenstance of life put into form. “My work is very process-oriented,” Burnes says. “I’m...
Through her work with animal rescues and sanctuaries, cleaning cages and transporting injured wild animals to urgent care, Allison Leigh Smith translates her intimate knowledge about each animal into a personal portrait. Her paintings contain more than just the animal. They reference subjective experiences with...
Spoken through the language of color, Roger Hayden Johnson applies a meditative sheen on his paintings of small rowboats. Devoid of figures or movement, the imagery rivets the mind. Johnson likens his repetitive use of small, often broken, and crudely repaired boats to Chinese scholar’s rocks...
Jennifer Johnson’s vintage poster paintings embody the deep-seated relationship Americans have with their national parks. As a child, Johnson grew up visiting, exploring, and camping in all of the national parks with her father, a plant pathologist for the National Forest Service. Her attachment to...
In his studio, Steven Handelman oversees the design and creation of wrought ironworks. Each piece is handmade by skilled craftsmen and fashioned one at a time. His vast array of lighting fixtures stem from historic designs updated to current standards. Handelman started his business directly out...
Textile artist Melissa Cody integrates contemporary themes with traditional Diné (Navajo) tapestry designs. A fourth-generation weaver raised on the reservation in Northern Arizona, Cody works within the parameters of the handed-down techniques she grew up practicing. She then adds her voice, incorporating symbols and text...
Painter Noel Hudson combines the intellectual and emotional content of abstraction with the surety of representation. Through the implication of images, careful use of color, and repeating patterns, she conveys a sense of the natural world. “When I was working on my Grass Series, I started...
Cynthia McLoughlin’s scraped and gouged paintings of ridgelines and summits on aluminum portray a raw wilderness. Glinting perspectives of a rare, pristine landscape, her paintings feel personal and accessible, yet enigmatic. Through her clawing marks that travel beneath the paint to the aluminum below, typical...
Recently, painter Robert Goldman completed a significant endeavor that created a visual dialogue of the Western landscape. He retraced the route of John Wesley Powell’s trip down the Colorado River, resulting in a commemorative show that honors the 150th anniversary of the expedition. His first instinct...