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,”...
Steve Kestrel’s minute-long stroll from his house to the studio on 63 acres in Colorado’s Redstone Canyon, about 15 miles west of Fort Collins, often resembles more of a nature trek than a commute. “I almost always take my field glasses,” he says, the better...
Post-war American artist Paul Harris [1925 – 2018] decided to become a sculptor while attending the University of New Mexico in 1948, where he studied with Agnes Martin. After that, a summer working under Hans Hofmann became crucial to his creative development. Primarily a sculptor,...
SHED Architecture & Design is a bit of a maverick in today’s design world; they hue to a pragmatic rather than a conceptual line. That’s no accident. Based in Seattle, Washington, founders Prentis Hale and Thomas Schaer met while pursuing their masters in architecture at the...
Café Solo from Eva Solo Eva Solo opened its doors more than 100 years ago, and today, it’s managed by Jan Engelbrecht, the fourth generation of the founder’s family. The company was originally established to manufacture functional, high-quality kitchen utensils for the Scandinavian home. Since then,...
Colorful tissue-paper banners flutter high above El Mercado Market Square, a three-block outdoor plaza in downtown San Antonio, Texas. Mariachi music rings through the air, and tempting aromas from restaurants tease the taste buds. Artisans sell souvenirs from small booths on the sidewalks, and stalls...
When you’re a trustee of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, you know a thing or two about art. So when Philip Maritz put together his plan for The Ameswell Hotel in Mountain View, California, his vision to infuse contemporary paintings, sculptures, and photographs into...
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...