Paul Schürch “paints” pictures and creates other artful objects using an unexpected medium: thin wood veneers, designed, hand-cut, and applied to sturdy wooden surfaces in realistic images of miraculously radiant beauty. To achieve such results, he draws on skills gained through a lifetime of diligent...
About 25 years ago, Debora Duran-Geiger began to explore making ceramic-mosaic folk art crosses set into wooden frames handcrafted by her husband Michael. With dedicated self-education and a creative drive that tapped into her seventh-generation Santa Fean heritage, those early efforts evolved into her career...
A first glance at any of Kevin Box’s collaborative sculptures almost invariably leads to a second, longer look in astonishment. How does a folded piece of Japanese origami paper manage to withstand the elements and remain perfectly still outdoors at a monumental scale as large...
On a recent summer afternoon, while Robert D. McFarland and his wife Robbie were riding their bikes during one of their frequent visits to the area where he grew up in northeastern Utah’s Cache Valley, a work of art suddenly demanded to be painted. “I...
When Leslie Duke was little, she loved her mother’s bedtime readings of Burt Dow, Deep-Water Man, a seafaring tale written and illustrated by Robert McCloskey, best known for Make Way for Ducklings and Blueberries for Sal. “Now I read it to my 4-year-old son Anders,”...
Had David Frederick Riley kept growing beyond 6 feet, 2 inches tall in 10th grade, he figures he might have pursued an NBA career. Fortunately for the world of Western art, however, his height had maxed out. “Around my junior year of high school in...
How perfectly apt that Wayne Delyea, maker of heirloom-quality Western contemporary furniture, should live and work in what was once the largest pecan orchard in Texas, in the community called Pecan Plantation, southwest of Fort Worth. About 80 of those trees still grow on his...
Lisa Gleim has loved portraying the natural world’s denizens for as long as she can remember. “When I was 6, I drew a picture of a clown with a lion, and it won a ribbon at the county fair. I still have it framed on...
To label Vanessa Compton’s artwork as “collage” may at first cause some people to erroneously imagine the sorts of projects done by weekend crafters. One look at The Lives of Man, however, quickly puts such preconceptions to rest. At more than 3 feet wide and...
When Brett Allen Johnson received the Victor Higgins Work of Distinction Award at the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art’s Quest for the West Art Show and Sale in September 2021, more than the undeniable quality of his three paintings set him apart....