There’s a canoe hanging from the ceiling of Dick Idol’s art studio, and it’s not just any old boat. Purchased from a fur trade museum in Michigan more than 35 years ago, this 16.5-foot Ojibwa birch bark canoe was made between 1850 and 1880 in Northern...
Joel Ostlind’s subject matter reflects the glorious diversity of the Rocky Mountain West, encompassing cowboys, horses and cattle, wildlife, fly fishing, and the great outdoors itself. So it stands to reason that his ideal studio would offer a literal window into that expansive world, a...
Waterfowl migrating along the Americas find respite annually in the extensive wetlands and open waters of the Klamath Basin, a wildlife oasis that stretches from Southern Oregon to Northern California. Known as the Pacific Flyway, the migration route boasts more than a million birds a...
When John Mortensen’s house was built in 1913, it anchored a burgeoning town at the key intersection of the remote high-altitude valley that early fur traders had dubbed Jackson Hole. Situated on Fish Creek at the base of the Tetons on the west side of...
About five years ago, award-winning Western and plein-air painter Tim Solliday learned he’d have to vacate the Pasadena, California, studio where he’d worked for more than a decade. The one-time atelier of famed early-20th-century painter and illustrator Frank Tenney Johnson had provided Solliday with ample...
Panoramic views of the Jemez Mountains greet David McElroy when he enters his studio on the high plains of New Mexico. A window in place of two garage doors provides unobstructed views, and, from time to time, a herd of grazing pronghorn antelope draws his...
When artist Paul Kos was commissioned to create a sculpture for the Poetry Sculpture Garden in the SoMa neighborhood in his adopted hometown of San Francisco, he knew precisely where to retreat for inspiration. Collaborating with Robert Hass, former poet laureate of the U.S., the...
For Irvin and Lisa Trujillo of Centinela Traditional Arts, weaving is not only an art form and livelihood, it’s also a celebration of the landscapes and lifestyles of their historic community of Chimayo, New Mexico. “I've always loved the land,” Irvin says. “And I’m a...
What makes Charlie Ringer a contemporary Western artist isn’t subject matter — or geography — although the Montana metal artist has cut, ground, and welded into being any number of bison and swirling trout. Instead, Ringer embodies the ethos of the West populated by cowboys,...
A vision of the mysterious light in Spanish Shawl, one of JoAnn Peralta’s most notable paintings, came to her as she was waking up one morning. The light was so purely brilliant, she felt she had to match it exactly. But she won’t reveal how...