STRIDING PURPOSEFULLY THROUGH SIX FLAGS OVER MID-AMERICA (now Six Flags St. Louis) on a warm June day, Teresa Elliott suddenly stopped in her tracks. In front of her was an attraction where artists sat with paper and pastels, rapidly sketching the likeness of each person...
NOT MANY WORKING ARTISTS CAN CLAIM A DIRECT CONNECTION to an artform that’s hundreds of years old, but Luis Tapia continues to give new relevance to the art of the santo, revitalizing a form of Chicano religious iconography that dates to the turn of the...
THERE'S THE POSTCARD VERSION of spectacular Western American landscapes, places such as national parks, for example, that shout out, “This is beauty!” And then there’s the more common and intimate magnificence that most people drive on past. This second kind of beauty is what artist...
WHEN JONATHAN FOOTE DESIGNS A HOUSE, he thinks like a composer. “When I’m designing buildings,” the architect explains, “I have music going through my head. Key changes, rhythm changes, they’re really key to conceptualizing a building, especially where there are volumes of space, passages, resting...
ALTHOUGH THE ARCHITECTURAL STYLES of San Francisco vary greatly, the image that no doubt pops into most people’s minds is that of the decorative and colorful Italianate row houses and Victorian- and Edwardian-style buildings lining the city’s classic neighborhoods. But as with any cultural hub...
IT'S ELEMENTAL. SYMBOLIC. The center of stories told throughout the centuries. Fire informs our lives and questions our mortality. It is of the real world, but also the divine. It keeps us warm, ignites our imaginations, and destroys as well as engenders. On Fire: Transcendent Landscapes...
OBSERVATION IS CRITICAL TO THE CREATIVE PRACTICE of artist, writer, and naturalist James Prosek. Observation, and what American biologist E.O. Wilson described as “biophilia,” the instinctive bond between humans and other living systems. As Prosek explains, it’s a fascination with life and its diversity, “a...
BEGINNING IN THE WINTERS OF THE 1930s, Frank Lloyd Wright, the father of organic architecture, embraced the ancient act of migration. He led his apprentices and his wife on a wild adventure south, settling on the inhospitable red earth of the Sonoran Desert in Scottsdale,...
“I SIMPLY COULD NOT STAY AWAY,” says Darwin Harrison. This disclaimer explains why the designer decided to design, build, and craft the interiors — not to mention the landscape — of the new house he shares with his partner, Robert Buckner. The Austin, Texas-based polymath (he...
THE MASTER COWBOY ARTISANS who gathered in Hayden Lake, Idaho, more than two decades ago had few expectations beyond marking a pleasant meet-and-greet, sprinkled with a few marketing tips, and enjoying hail-fellow-well-met moments. Instead, the assembly skilled in Western design, from saddle makers and silversmiths to...