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,...
When designers Leela Brightenburg and Alissa Pulcrano first met in Portland, Oregon, they realized they had something unique in common. “We were working for another local design firm, and we both kept trying to break all the rules,” says Brightenburg, laughing. “Alissa and I developed...
AS ONE OF ONLY 23 UNESCO WORLD HERITAGE SITES in the U.S., New Mexico’s Chaco Canyon was occupied by the Pueblo people between 850 and 1250 A.D. Home to thousands, the community consisted of the largest collection of buildings in North America until the 1800s. The...
In each issue of Western Art and Architecture, we explore the creative process and the resulting work that encourages viewers to consider the West in a new light. The journey that takes an artist from idea, to execution, to examination by an audience may be filled with...
Bubble Lighting from Lindsey Adelman Studios We love fresh inspiration, especially when it comes to interior components that we live with day to day. Take, for example, this bubble chandelier designed by Karl Zahn for Lindsey Adelman Studio; its inspiration comes from a succulent known as...
Full of unexpected resonance, depth, and a sense of harmony, Tricia Rissmann employs color and texture to extoll the power of abstract form and composition. “I don’t usually have anything mapped out,” she says. “I just get in there and start creating and working for a...
After creating a variety of metalsmith work, Glenn Gilmore is returning to his first love: fireplace doors. The hearth, historically a central place to gather, cook, and share stories, can also convey a homeowner’s passions. Gilmore enjoys the gratification he gives to clients when he...
Angus Wilson’s still-life paintings quicken with color, bloom with shape, and speak of the artists upon whose shoulders he stands, and the future that he sees from that viewpoint. He identifies himself as a contemporary Post-Impressionist painter, a label he’s created, but one that helps...
Mixed-media artist Amy Brakeman Livezey combines found objects with contemporary abstracted landscapes. Livezey picks up bits of detritus from the past, incorporating them like mementos into her paintings; places where traces of time tie an historical past with a present sense of things lost and...
In 1921, the federal government banned the Pueblo tribes sacred “pagan” dances. About the same time, a San Ildefonso woman started painting pictures — though only men of her tribe were supposed to paint. That artist, Quah Ah, captured the defiant, inner strength of her...