FINE ART PHOTOGRAPHYER CURTIS SPEER knows something about transformation. In the years since his still lifes have gained the approbation of collectors and critics, Speer has undergone a revolutionary metamorphosis, from abuse survivor to accomplished artist, and today can lay claim to a rewarding present...
[caption id="attachment_18409" align="alignright" width="376"] Talasnik at work on The Hive, which expresses both architecture and sculpture.[/caption] LAST SEASON, THE TIPPET RISE ART CENTER finished its year with an extravaganza encompassing spectacle, performance, and fire. Sculptor Stephen Talasnik, creator of permanent land art installations at the Fishtail,...
DURING THE 17TH CENTURY, as the Spanish conquistadores roamed what is now the American Southwest, they found themselves lacking something of importance. Though devout Roman Catholics, they hadn’t brought along the iconic religious statues central to their worship (baroque statuary is cumbersome and heavy). So...
IT WAS 1980 WHEN JIM DAGER FIRST saw Heart Mountain while traveling through Cody, Wyoming, on his way to Billings, Montana. Driving past Cody’s most distinctive landmark, he was so taken with the beauty and ruggedness of the mountain that he actually stopped by the...
EARLY ON HIS FRIST MORNING IN Longmont, Colorado, in August 2004, artist John Taft made his way through rooms full of moving boxes and out the front door. He headed straight for a nearby spot from which he could see the mountains, more than ready...
IT'S EASY TO GRASP WHY A HOUSE ON A BLUFF OVERLOOKING downtown Reno, Nevada, has come to be called Shapeshifter. Depending on your vantage point, the 5,900-square-foot home — an irregular yet somehow organic-seeming assemblage of jutting standing-seam roofs, cast-in-place concrete walls, and sweeping but...
AT THE CONFLUENCE OF THE TAYLOR AND EAST RIVERS lies the sleepy town of Almont, Colorado, an anglers paradise located halfway between the resort community of Crested Butte and the ranching outpost of Gunnison. A fork in the road veers east, following the Taylor up...
WILDLIFE ARTIST CARRIE WILD HAS SPENT thousands of hours outdoors, tracking, viewing, and photoraphing wildlife. She is equally at home among the impressive, soaring mountain peaks and expansive valleys of Jackson Hole, Wyoming, as she is on the African plains, or in the frigid polar...
RON HICKS HAS ALWAYS BEEN A FIGURATIVE PAINTER. As a little kid, he could draw the neighbors with innate accuracy. He earned scholarships in high school and college to study fine art, and though Hicks pursued a career in graphic design after college, he says...
ENCOUNTERING ONE OF PATRICK DOUGHERTY'S “stick work” sculptures feels like a mythological discovery. Architectural, anthropomorphic, or abstract, his site-specific installations transform ordinary environments into provocative illusions resembling enchanted dwellings, suspended cyclones, or wooly creatures. [caption id="attachment_18057" align="aligncenter" width="547"] River Vessels | 2010 | Waco Cultural Arts...