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....
Labeling Levi Jackson’s artworks as photographs alone would be the same sort of reductionism he undoubtedly advises his students against when teaching studio photography, art criticism, and artist’s theory at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah. “I make temporary site-specific installations that I document with...
Josh Tafoya designs and weaves vivid, contemporary textiles that draw on his Southwestern heritage in Northern New Mexico, “going back all the way to the Spanish Conquistadors who settled the rural area of Taos County where my cousins and my parents still live.” More and...
Still-life paintings by Sarah Siltala stir the soul like small miracles. Consider American Goldfinch, for example. The bird looks vibrantly three-dimensional and is thrumming with energy as if it flew in through the window just a moment ago. The bird’s eye shines, creating an eerie...
Early next year, some of Nicole Finger’s paintings will soar to their greatest heights yet. That’s when three works, including Butterfly Express, depicting her 23-year-old daughter, Sam, on a bed of peonies, and Freedom, depicting her 19-year-old son, Max, against the backdrop of Palmyra Peak...