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...
AS A YOUNG ART STUDENT 30 YEARS AGO, T. Allen Lawson assumed that at some point he would have a manageable handle on the technical part of applying paint. He would gain skills, improve them, and then basically be able to paint whatever he wanted....
PEOPLE MAY DOUBT, BUT I'VE SEEN IT. First of all, the chest itself is a treasure, a cast-bronze, Romanesque lockbox, dating to about 1150. Second, it’s filled with items only a lifelong collector, ardent archeologist, and lover of beautiful things with a mischievous gleam in his...
IT TOOK ALMOST THREE YEARS TO DESIGN AND BUILD this 6,392-square-foot masterpiece that is at once grand and gracious. The home is located in the desert mountains of Prescott, Arizona, about 100 miles north of Phoenix. Constructed for a sophisticated art-, history-, and nature-loving family,...
IN THE PANTHEON OF COLLECTIBLE ITEMS ON DISPLAY at Indian Market in Santa Fe every August, pueblo pottery is perhaps the most coveted. Ranging in technique and design, pots, jars, urns, and plates tell a story of traditional craftsmanship, often brought into the 21st century...
IN A GRASSY EXPANSE PEPPERED WITH SCULPTURES and clusters of 100-year-old trees, there are three small, traditional log cabins, a vintage barn, and their newest neighbor, a contemporary log home with a split Corten-steel roof, angled to sit agreeably among the other structures. [caption id="attachment_16638" align="alignleft"...
Bill (Billy to his friends) Schenck is one of the leading contemporary Western artists. As a protégé of Andy Warhol during New York’s Pop Art movement in the 1970s, his work is a mix of Photo-realism, Minimalism, and cowboy kitsch that has landed his paintings...