“Artists,” says Jan Mapes, “are scientists at heart. We want to see an object, like a tree, and break it down further and further into its parts, and then put those parts back together visually while asking ourselves questions like, ‘What feelings does that tree...
Teal Blake was born to the paintbrush as a horseman might be born in the saddle. He grew up in Montana, the son of photographer Tona Freeman Blake and cowboy and artist Buckeye Blake, long respected for his distinctive blend of traditional and contemporary Western...
Hollis Chitto’s beaded bag Bloodwork Number 2 might at first appear to be a beautiful piece of traditional American Indian art, its symmetrical design, bold colors, nature motifs, and painstaking handwork expressing centuries of heritage. However, a closer examination of the front panel reveals the...
Many of Sophy Brown’s recent works offer a deeply personal spin on the concept of the vanishing West. In Dueto Americano, for example, she realistically renders a Mexican-American cowboy on horseback in acrylics on a large-scale surface. Yet, all around the duo, abstract swirls, splashes,...
Plein air artist W. Truman Hosner does not hesitate when asked to explain why pastels are his medium of choice. “From the youngest age,” he says, “the one thing that always delighted me was color. And pastel is pure color. When you’re a painter working...
When Al Boswell came across his late father’s pocket watch a few years ago, he realized he had to create something special so its significance would not be lost. His dad, who had a “very small, very rocky dairy farm in southwest Missouri” where Al...
An apt metaphor for Michael Blessing’s career-defining moment of inspiration might best be described not as a light bulb going off, but rather as a neon tube suddenly glowing. It happened six years ago, following two years of continuously painting oils of classic Western neon...
Evelyn Gottschall Baker’s success is partly due to the sculptures of objects she creates that are so realistic, it’s hard to believe they’re works of art. The antler in The Shed and the coyote skull in Balance, for example, look like they are an actual sun-bleached...
Israel Holloway never dreamed of setting records when he began painting more than a decade ago. “I just enjoy being on the journey,” he says. Nevertheless, when the Museum of Northwest Colorado in his hometown of Craig, a former coal community some 40 miles west...
Bruce Cascia studies storm clouds up close and personal for the dramatically realistic scenes he paints of the vast prairie. “I am constantly going to Lake Michigan,” says the Chicago-based artist, “to photograph big thunderheads blowing through, just like I did when I was a...